Brussels, 20/02/2004 (Agence Europe) - As the Spring European Council 2003 hoped, the European Commission adopted on Thursday its first annual report on progress made in favour of incorporating the gender dimension into the various strategic areas for achievement of the overall Lisbon goals. This new report highlights the slowness of progress made by efforts aimed at bridging the gap between men and women, which could hamper European competitiveness. The report, to be examined during the Spring Summit of 25 and 26 March, invites the European Council to call insistently upon Member States to double their effort to promote equality between men and women in very sector of society.
In its conclusions, the report mainly advocates: 1) guaranteeing rapid implementation, in Member States, of legislative texts recently adopted, and the transposition of EC acquis on equal treatment in acceding States; 2) adopting, before March 2005, the draft directive based on Article 13 which will for the first time ban all discrimination based on gender outside the labour market, mainly in access to goods and services and in provision of the same; 3) narrowing the income gap between men and women in cooperation with social partners; 4) supporting balanced representation of men and women at the next European elections; 5) strengthening the integration of equality between men and women in all strategic fields; 6) developing statistics and indicators on the gender dimension; 7) ensuring emphasis is placed on gender equality in the use of all Structural Funds; 8) continuing the implementation of the gender dimension in the European Research Area; 9) combating violence against women; and 10) combating the trade in women. The Commission also points out that it will continue to make gender equality move forward through the use of Structural Funds.
In support of these conclusions, the report mainly evokes: 1) considerable improvement: the rate of employment of women is today around 55.6% in the EU (as opposed to 50% in the early nineties). The gap between the rate of unemployment for men and women is narrowing. EU enlargement in May 2004 will be followed by fewer disparities between men and women as far as employment is concerned throughout the EU. At the level of education, women account for 55% of qualified persons in the EU; 2) additional measures to be taken to eliminate persistent inequality: as far as paid work is concerned, there is a 17.2% difference between the men/women employment rates in the EU15. For the unemployment rate, the difference is 1.8%. 34% of women employed work part time in the EU15, as opposed to 7% of men; 3) remuneration: the salary gap between men and women in the EU is 16% (with women earning less); and 4) participation in decision-making: only 25.4% of parliamentary seats in the EU are held by women, who only hold 30% of executive posts.