The EU Ministers responsible for equality will meet in videoconference on Friday 20 November, at a groundbreaking informal meeting organised at the initiative of the German Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
However, given the Covid-19 pandemic, the latter had to scale down its ambitions: the meeting was initially scheduled to take place in Potsdam over two days, as the German Minister for Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, Franziska Giffey, had suggested in July (see EUROPE 12520/7).
The ministerial discussions will focus on the services that the Member States could potentially implement at European level to protect women from the gender violence of which they are still the primary victims. In particular, the ministers are expected to be invited to describe examples of best practices.
In order to improve women’s access to protection and counselling services, the German Presidency is expected, among other things, to propose a project for a European emergency number for women who are victims of violence.
From an informal meeting to a dedicated EU Council?
The subject of equality has recently taken its place in the European College of Commissioners, with a dedicated portfolio for the first time in the ‘von der Leyen’ Commission. It is also broadly addressed in the European Parliament, notably by the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM).
In the EU Council, on the other hand, there is no configuration that brings together the ministers responsible for these matters in the various European governments. However, calls from political figures in this respect, particularly from ministers (see EUROPE 12524/7), have become more common recently.
When Mrs Giffey announced to MEPs that this informal meeting would be held, the S&D and GUE/NGL groups called for “this informal meeting to become formal”.
“Technically, it’s not impossible. Politically, on the other hand, it should be a priority recognised by a majority of States”, commented Éric Maurice, head of the Brussels office of the Robert Schuman Foundation. “We are on potentially divisive ground for some States”, he said. He also pointed out that “the question of the means of action available to the EU in this regard also arises here”.
Issues related to women’s rights and gender equality are indeed more related to the EU’s support competences and to some of its shared competences. Some of these issues are therefore already being addressed in other configurations of the EU Council. Often laboriously, however (see EUROPE 12581/14, 12356/16).
Last March, in an op-ed, several ministers and MEPs deplored the inefficient conduct of equality policies at the European level, which remain “split between several Councils of Ministers” (see EUROPE 12441/8). (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)