Brussels, 14/09/2001 (Agence Europe) - The action programme concerning the Community strategy for gender equality (2001-2005), adopted by the Commission in June 2000, was officially launched in Brussels on 13 September in the presence of the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Equal Opportunities, Laurette Onkelinx and Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou (see EUROPE of 5 September, p.16).
Presenting the action programme's structure to the press, with a total of 50 million euro over five years, Anna Diamantopulou recalled that it focused on five goals: 1) equality in economic life; 2) equality is social life; 3) changing roles and eradication of stereotypes; 4) equality in civil life; 5) equal participation and representation. In addition, the measures being envisaged are formed around two pillars: a) a mainstreaming pillar (integration, in the different Commission's services, of concrete actions for women in all existing policies, activities and programmes); b) a specific pillar aimed at combating all forms of discrimination that women come up against in the workplace (see EUROPE of 8 June 2000). For the Commissioner, "the success of this new programme mainly depends of the engagement of NGOs, social partners and national, regional and local political authorities".
Referring to the five priorities presented by Ms. Diamantopoulou, Laurette Onkelinx said that, whereas we have to move forward together along these five paths, the Belgian Presidency has as priority mission to promote gender equality in economic life and has chosen to work more specifically on wage inequalities (…) that are as old as the work of women". At European level, Ms. Onkelinx recalled, "women working full-time only earn 75% of what men do. The percentage varies from 71% to 90%, the percentage of 80% or more being recorded in East Germany, in the Nordic States, Luxembourg and Belgium, and the lowest being in the Netherlands, Portugal, Austria and the United Kingdom. A wage gap may be explained, according to the Minister, by differences in women's training, the way their careers unfold, horizontal and vertical segregation of the labour market, or even the under-evaluation of the role of women.