Brussels, 14/09/2005 (Agence Europe) - On the occasion of Women's Day on 8 March, the president of the Commission, José Manuel Barroso, speaking in Strasbourg, highlighted his commitment in favour of promoting equal opportunities between men and women, announcing the creation of the European Institute for equality between men and women, as called for by the European Council (see EUROPE 8904). Since then, members of the European Parliament have been working to ensure that this European Institute can be created as quickly as possible. With this in mind, the committee on women's rights and equal opportunities of the EP held a public hearing on this proposal by the Commission, in Brussels on 13 September.
Guaranteeing the autonomy of this institute and ensuring that it receives adequate levels of funding: "not just crumbs", as Lissy Gröner (PES, Germany) put it at the start of the work-to allow it to move forward the plank of the Lisbon strategy on equal opportunities: these were the main requirements put forward by the members of the European Parliament. And, in the words of the vice president of the committee, Edite Estrela (PES, Portugal), "we must not forget the enormous amount of impetus given to us by the Luxembourg Presidency, which focused very hard" on this issue (EUROPE 8882).
Presenting the proposal of the European Commission, Luisella Pavan-Woolfe, Director-General for DG Employment, pointed out that creating this kind of institute must "send out a very clear signal for the promotion of equal opportunities between men and women". "13 directives have been drawn up, 200 rulings have been pronounced by the Court of Justice, which shows just how important equal opportunities are for the everyday lives of people in Europe", stressed Ms Pavan-Woolfe, who feels that this institute should be "a technical Centre of excellence, in order to help us draw up legislation, design policies and implement them, in order to achieve the Lisbon objectives". The MEPs heard from several national experts, including Professor Susanne Baer (Faculty of Law, Humboldt University in Berlin), who presented the experience of a National Institute, the "GenderKompetenzzentrum". Professeur Paolo Feltrin (Tolomeo Studi e Ricerche, University of Trévise) acknowledged that the most difficult phase will be the launch, the "lift-off", of the Institute, during its first five years of existence (2007-2013). This is the so-called "institutionalisation phase, which allows it to take root and become recognised". Mr Feltrin stressed the need to delimit the tasks of the Institute clearly and to lay down a clear profile for its director ("a statistician?"). The President of the European Women's Lobby (EWL) Kristi Kolthoff, for her part, pleaded in favour of an internal structure with a high level of representation of women. As for the vice president of "New Women for Europe", Andrea Ettl, she highlighted the need for the Institute to be neutral politically and opened up to other fields of research and analysis, such as demographic change. She feels that "this institute should not be the legislator for a lobby, it should maintain a pluralist approach and make political decision-makers aware of the expectations of men and women in Europe".
Fielding questions from those taking part, Ms Luisella Pavan-Woolfe said: 1) "one of the sine qua non conditions in making this proposal was its budgetary neutrality, without which the approval of the Council would not have been forthcoming"; 2) the Institute should not become a legislator, it must be "independent and apolitical", it must promote, analyse and assess, without getting involved in the legislative process.
Summing up, Lissy Gröner said that for the Head of the institute, "we should have somebody who is concerned by issues of equal opportunities between men and women, who fights to defend women's interests; not a statistician, therefore, but a woman". Amalia Sartori (EPP-ED, Italy), co-rapporteur with Ms Gröner, also insisted that the institute should be "technical", that its competencies should be clearly defined and that it should hold constant and direct dialogue with the national authorities. The "lift-off" phase must be done well, and the policies "evolve, come to maturity", said the Forza Italia MEP, adding: we do not need a "pink" Eurostat, but a flexible and interactive structure.