Brussels, 12/09/2002 (Agence Europe) - The EP's Women's Rights Committee chaired by Greek Socialist Anna Karamanou has unanimously adopted the own initiative report by Belgian Christian Democrat Miet Smet on women's representation in EU employers' organisations and trade unions, "social partners". According to the report, strategies must be designed for increasing the number of women in social partner organisations and encouraging the social partners to design positive action programmes along with penalties and set targets and deadlines for the representation of women. The report laments that the European institutions do not require balanced representation on European works councils and calls on the European Commission to set up a database on women's participation in the social partners' organisations, using the data to set indicators to strengthen women's influence in social and economic decision-making bodies and also to include in its employment reports an analysis of women's involvement in collective bargaining.
Introducing her report, Miet Smet highlighted the absence of information about women's participation in social partners' organisations. In terms of workers, around 40% of trade union members are women but the proportion of women holding leading positions is less than 25%. There is only a very small percentage of women in employers' organisations, varying according to Member State and organisation from 1.51% to 20%.