At a time when the European Union is concentrating on defence and competitiveness, the European Commission has presented its Roadmap for Women’s Rights, a text intended to serve as a ‘compass’ for the future strategy for equality between women and men, starting this year.
The document, published on Friday 7 March ahead of the International Day, is part of a long-planned timetable that has been disrupted by current geopolitical tensions. Does this mean that this issue is of secondary importance?
At a press conference, the European Commissioner for Equality, Hadja Lahbib, referring in particular to a backlash against women’s rights, dismissed the issue at the outset of her speech: “No, on the contrary, these crises all have a direct impact on the lives of women and girls, and on their rights too. Today, everything is linked”.
This ‘roadmap’ follows on from the ‘Strategy for Gender Equality 2020-2025’ and sets out the broad guidelines that the EU intends to follow over the next five years.
Hadja Lahbib said: “We have made progress over the last five years (...) But we need to go further and translate this progress into concrete action”.
Violence, health and employment. The fight against gender-based violence is at the top of the plan’s list of key issues.
The Commission points out that one woman in three in the EU has already been a victim of physical or sexual violence, and that this scourge costs the European Union almost €290 billion every year.
However, while the text calls for such violence to be prevented and combated, it does not address the lack of consensus within the EU on a common legal definition of rape based on the absence of consent, a point that gave rise to heated debate last year during negotiations on the directive on combating violence against women.
Access to healthcare is another major point in the document.
The Commission maintains that the gap in the treatment of women needs to be closed, particularly in the area of cardiovascular disease, which is often under-diagnosed in female patients because of a gender bias in medical research.
However, the issue of sexual and reproductive rights, and in particular abortion, is approached with caution.
According to a press release, Renew Europe, while welcoming the progress made in the text, regrets that the ‘roadmap’ does not guarantee access to voluntary termination of pregnancy in all Member States.
This lack of ambition is also criticised by the Greens/EFA group, which targets the absence of any explicit reference to the inclusion of the right to abortion in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, even though the Parliament has voted in favour of this. “Progress remains timid”, according to French MEP Mélissa Camara.
Professional life. As far as equal pay is concerned, despite some progress, the Commission acknowledges that the pay gap between women and men remains at 12% on average in the EU.
It is true that a directive on salary transparency was adopted in 2023, but its implementation remains a challenge.
The ‘roadmap’ also supports work-life balance, calling for a fairer division of domestic and parental tasks, which the Commission believes would benefit society as a whole and boost economic competitiveness.
When it comes to political participation, the facts are clear: women are still vastly under-represented in positions of power. In 2025, only 28 of the world’s heads of state are women, a level which, at the current rate, would take 130 years to achieve complete parity. The EU intends to step up its efforts to promote the representation of women in decision-making bodies, but the roadmap does not propose any new binding measures in this area.
The document therefore lays the foundations for a future strategy, but its actual scope is debatable.
In a press release, the S&D Group in the European Parliament is critical of the fact that the document does not go far enough, and argues that the Commission must commit to concrete and legislative actions if this ‘roadmap’ is not to remain simply a declaration of intent. This criticism is shared by the European Women’s Lobby, which welcomes the signal sent out, but calls for binding measures, particularly in terms of funding and monitoring of commitments.
The ‘roadmap’ will be presented to Parliament at a plenary session on Tuesday 11 March. Hadja Lahbib is also due to present it at the 69th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, from 10 to 21 March 2025, at UN headquarters in New York.
The ‘roadmap’: https://aeur.eu/f/fss (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)