The European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) will vote on Thursday 9 December on a draft resolution calling for new measures to combat sexual harassment and assault within the institution.
The text put to the vote will correspond word for word to the one detailed in our columns last week (see EUROPE 12846/11), despite the reluctance of the most right-wing groups.
On the initiative of the ECR, the FEMM Committee was called upon on Monday to decide on the retention of certain paragraphs. However, the latter were supported by a large majority of MEPs, mainly from the S&D, Renew Europe, Greens/EFA and The Left groups.
The votes included paragraphs calling for anti-harassment training to be made compulsory and for the list of MEPs who have already undergone such training to be made public.
Only the ID and ECR groups opposed the introduction of these two provisions. EPP MEPs - with the exception of Cindy Franssen (Belgium) and Sirpa Pietikäinen (Finland) - and The Left MEP Sandra Pereira (Portugal) abstained from the vote on the paragraph calling for compulsory training on the grounds that voluntary training has so far “proved insufficient”.
Finally, the right-wing was sceptical about considering sanctions or limiting the recruitment of an MEP or any other staff member who refuses to undergo mandatory anti-harassment training.
The six ID and ECR MEPs voted against this measure. The EPP group abstained, with the exception of Sirpa Pietikäinen. The Finnish MEP once again supported the provision, as did 19 MEPs from the S&D, Renew Europe, Greens/EFA and The Left groups.
To see the details of the votes: https://bit.ly/3oAgMby (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)