As part of Gender Equality Week (see EUROPE 13049/15), the European Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) organised a hearing on Wednesday 26 October on ways to revise the EU treaties to incorporate gender equality. Guests Carlien Scheele, Director of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), and Monika Polzin, Professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, took contrasting views on the subject.
Should the treaties be revised?
According to Ms Polzin, as the treaties are already based on principles of non-discrimination and gender equality, it would be unnecessary and even deleterious to revise them. She believes, for example, that requiring EU bodies to have equal gender representation “would fundamentally change the legal nature of the Union, because it would reshape the principle of non-discrimination and the principle of democracy”, according to which individuals compete directly without gender criteria and can elect whomever they wish. She also pointed out that as it stands, this proposal does not take into account non-binary people.
Despite a relative consensus among MEPs on the need for representation of non-binary people, Ms Polzin’s speech was met with criticism. Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield (Greens/EFA, French) argued that as long as certain issues, such as sexual and reproductive rights, were not included in the treaties, the EU had no competence in this area. Helmut Scholz (The Left, German) mentioned that the revision of the treaties had been requested by the citizens in the framework of the Conference on the Future of Europe.
Need to monitor implementation
For her part, Carlien Scheele insisted on the need to improve “the implementation and monitoring process” in order to be informed of the impact of the European framework on the ground. “One might argue there is enough in the treaties to ensure non-discrimination and equal treatment of women and men across the EU. Unfortunately our analysis shows that government commitment to gender mainstreaming have decreased overall since 2012”, she warned (see EUROPE 13049/14).
“We see that in many countries there is a backlash against gender equality […] While having all these instruments of the treaties and the charter […] legislative safety measures must be introduced also on the primary law of the EU”, hammered Robert Biedroń (S&D, Poland), chair of the European Parliament’s Gender Equality Committee (FEMM), who had been invited to attend the session. In particular, he advocates for the inclusion of the gender dimension in European legislation and the promotion of gender parity in the institutions. He also called for “a catalogue of the rights which will be a basis of securing gender equality, a kind of EU women’s rights charter”. (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)