Brussels, 13/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - By adopting the report by Rodi Krasta Tsagaropoulou (Greece, EPP: see EUROPE of 30 January. P.7) on Thursday, the European Parliament came down in favour of promoting women's rights in Mediterranean countries and called on the Commission not to limit itself to education and training alone but to have a global political vision of the problem. "An area of peace, prosperity and stability needs creating in Mediterranean countries (…) Women are called upon to play a central role in setting up such an area", declared Ms. Krasta Tsagaropoulou when presenting her report. She then recalled that "the EIB has no credits for supporting women's activities", and considered that there ought to be "a Mediterranean EIB with such credits, as well as the creation of a databank to assess the situation and take account of women's problems, and especially migrant women".
During the debate that followed, Lone Dybkjaer (Denmark, ELDR) said that there needed to be a guarantee that "when negotiating association agreements, women are taken into account". As for Italian Radical Emma Bonino, she referred to a major flaw in the Krasta Tsagaropoulou Report, which was "Islam and its political manipulation of the established power: there are women in those countries fighting for the modernisation of the Koran, and that we don't find in the report", she said. Agreeing with her, Lissy Groner (German, PES) recalled the commitments of the Beijing conference on women's rights, as well as certain negative tendencies like the fact that "in some areas, 60% of women are excluded from education, health care (notably concerning procreation), and even suffer from the trade in human beings". Rallying around the words of Emma Bonino, British Conservative Roger Helmer considered that "in future, enormous pressure needs applying on societies to make them understand that there will be consequences if equality between men and women is not guaranteed". Anna Diamantopoulou announced to the MEPs that the Commission was in the process of drawing up a paper setting out the basic principles that will introduce the protection of women's rights everywhere. This paper will need the assent of the Foreign Ministers. "In 2003, we want a programme with concrete recommendations and principles recognised by all. We shall speak of this with the parliamentarians", she declared, concluding: "I am convinced that, even if we elaborate educational programmes and provide for the funds, implementation of this type of programme will only be a success if it comes within international law and the Beijing Declaration".