B3-0255, 0258, 0261, 0264, 0265 and 0267/94

Resolution on the situation of women in the European Union

The European Parliament,

1.Wishes to pay tribute, on the occasion of International Women's Day (8 March 1994), to all the world's women and acknowledges their contribution to the development and well-being of humanity;

2.Recalls that 1994 marks the tenth anniversary of its Committee on Women's Rights and commends the committee's members, successive chairwomen and staff for their unstinting efforts in support of the interests of women in the European Union and elsewhere in the world;

3.Salutes the action of the Commission in promoting equal opportunities for men and women and hopes that it will continue to pursue this objective, particularly by implementing measures to guarantee that the policy of incorporating the equality opportunities aspect into all European policies and programmes is respected;

4.Considers that women are currently under-represented in the decision-making bodies in the political sphere, at national, regional and local level and in sectors such as finance, the media, the law, social organizations and consultative bodies;

5.Considers that equal representation of men and women in such decision-making bodies can only increase the legitimacy and quality of those bodies,

6.Calls on the Commission to step up its commitment to promote the participation of women in the decision-making process;

7.Calls on the Member States to urge the two sides of industry and the political parties to encourage affirmative action in their organizations and companies, to ensure that women applicants are given access to vacant posts in areas where women are under-represented; believes that consideration should be given to target figures and that a quota system should be introduced if they are not achieved by the year 2000;

8.Blames the Council for the lack of progress in recent years in the area of legislation and reaffirms that it is of fundamental importance that directives such as those on atypical employment, equal treatment for men and women in statutory and supplementary social security schemes, the burden of proof and parental leave should be adopted to abolish the discrimination suffered by many women in the labour market;

9.Calls on women parliamentarians in the parliaments of the Member States to support and closely monitor European legislation concerning women and to coordinate parliamentary initiatives with their sisters in the European Parliament;

10.Calls on the Commission, the Council and the Member States to be particularly vigilant when implementing the conditions and measures needed to promote and guarantee equal opportunities for women and men, and to give priority to the fields of education, training, R&D and employment and labour market policies;

11.Calls on the Commission, the Council and the Member States to ensure that measures such as flexible working time, developing various forms of childcare, the reintegration into working life of women who have spent time bringing up children and social security and tax policies taking account of family responsibilities are introduced so that family and work commitments can be reconciled;

12.Calls on the Commission, the Council and the Member States to give particular attention to informing women of the provisions, measures and programmes which concern them;

13.Calls on the Member States to provide funds for reception centres for women and girls in distress;

14.Intends to ensure that the principle of equality between men and women is applied without discrimination to legal residents of the Union;

15.Calls for Eurostat to compile more detailed data and statistics on the situation of women in areas such as education, access to employment and social exclusion with a view to more suitable measures;

16.Welcomes the emergence of women in the developing countries, as a result of democratization, and stresses that the ACP-EEC Joint Assembly has played an important role in mobilizing women in the signatory states of the Lomé Convention;

17.Expresses its solidarity with all the women in the world who are in situations of armed conflict, adversity, extreme poverty and fanatical regimes attacking freedom and equality between men and women and assures them of its support and continued attention;

18.Hopes that the European Union will make a major contribution, in which Parliament will play an active part, to the Internation Conference on Population and Development (Cairo-Egypt, 5-13 September 1994), particularly as regards reproductive health, and to the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing-China, 4-15 September 1995);

19.Calls on the electorate to vote massively in the forthcoming European elections to ensure that a greater number of women are elected to Parliament;

20.Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the governments of the Member States.