31 Amendments of Iratxe GARCÍA PÉREZ related to 2014/2015(INI)
Amendment 39 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas equality between women and men is a fundamental right enshrined in the Treaty on European Union and the Charter of Fundamental Rights; whereas, likewise, the European Union’s objective in this field is to ensure equal opportunities and treatment for men and women and to combat all discrimination based on gender;
Amendment 41 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A b (new)
Recital A b (new)
Ab. whereas traditional gender roles and stereotypes continue to have a strong influence on role distribution between women and men in the home, in the workplace and in society in general, and tend to perpetuate the status quo of inherited obstacles to the achievement of gender equality, which limit the employment opportunities and personal development of women;
Amendment 44 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B a (new)
Recital B a (new)
Ba. whereas the female unemployment rate is underestimated, since many women are not registered as unemployed, particularly those who live in rural or remote areas, those who help out in family businesses and many of those who devote themselves exclusively to household tasks and childcare; whereas this situation also creates a disparity in terms of access to public services (benefits, pensions, maternity leave, sick leave, access to social security etc.);
Amendment 71 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G
Recital G
G. whereas the precondition for women’s active inclusion in the labour market is availability of quality and affordable childcare facilities and services for children, the elderly and dependents;
Amendment 103 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital N a (new)
Recital N a (new)
Na. whereas violence against women is the world’s most widespread human rights violation, affecting all levels of society, regardless of age, education, income, social position and country of origin or residence, and representing a major hindrance to equality between women and men;
Amendment 105 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital N b (new)
Recital N b (new)
Nb. whereas although all the Member States have signed the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention), only 14 have ratified it;
Amendment 114 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital P a (new)
Recital P a (new)
Pa. whereas conditions are worsening for certain groups of women who frequently face several combined difficulties and risks and high levels of discrimination, in particular women with disabilities, women with dependants, elderly women, minority and immigrant women, female refugees and asylum seekers, women with little or no training, female victims of gender-based violence, female members of the LGTBI community, etc.;
Amendment 140 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Points out that the EU is obliged to combat social exclusion and discrimination under the TEU and that the TFEU enshrines the EU’s commitment to eliminating inequality and promoting equality between men and women; stresses that the principle of gender equality does not preclude the maintenance or adoption of measures which provide concrete benefits for the under-represented gender, as laid down in Article 23 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights;
Amendment 146 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Calls on the Commission to mainstream gender, equal opportunities and women’s rights into all budgets and policy-making, and into the implementation of EU measures and programmes, and to carry out gender impact assessments when setting up any new policy to help ensure a more coherent and evidence-based EU policy response to gender equality challenges;
Amendment 159 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6a. Notes that equal participation by women and men in the labour market could significantly increase the economic potential of the EU, while consolidating its fair and inclusive nature; points out that, according to OECD projections, total convergence in participation rates would result in a 12.4 % increase in per capita GDP by 2030;
Amendment 170 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Calls on the Commission to put forward an ambitious, comprehensive package of legislative and non-legislative measures regarding work-life balance as part of the Commission Work Programme 2017, to include the revision of existing maternity and paternity directives and proposals for directives on paternity leave and carer’s leave;
Amendment 173 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7a. Calls on the Commission and on the Member States to take measures to encourage men to share equally in domestic responsibilities and in caring for children and other dependants, in particular through incentives for men to take parental and paternity leave, which will strengthen their rights as parents, ensure a greater degree of equality between women and men and more appropriate distribution of family and housekeeping responsibilities, and enhance women’s opportunities to participate fully in the labour market;
Amendment 177 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 b (new)
Paragraph 7 b (new)
7b. Draws attention to the increasing prevalence of mandatory flexible working hours: weekend work, irregular, unpredictable and extended working hours, etc.; points out that flexible working hours affect part-time workers, the majority of whom are women, to a greater degree, which means that more women than men experience variations in their working hours from one week to the next, making it even more difficult to achieve a work-life balance, particularly for single mothers and women who care for dependant family members;
Amendment 191 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 a (new)
Paragraph 10 a (new)
10a. Points out that according to the European Added Value Assessment conclusions, a one percentage point decrease in the gender pay gap will increase economic growth by 0.1 %, which means that closing that gap is of crucial importance in the current economic downturn;
Amendment 193 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 b (new)
Paragraph 10 b (new)
10b. Deplores the ‘unexplainable’ dimension of the wage gap, which can be attributed to the discrimination suffered by many women who do not earn the same as men, even when they do the same job or a job of equal value; points out that wage differences can be attributed to the fact that women do not do the same jobs as men, owing to continued horizontal segregation and the division of labour by gender, meaning that less value is attributed to jobs considered ‘feminine’; to continued vertical segregation and thus to the glass ceiling which prevents women from reaching the highest and best paid positions; to the common practice of establishing different categories within a single position (for example, men working in cleaning services perform the superior role of maintenance technician, while women perform the inferior role of cleaner or similar); and to the over- representation of women in part-time work, which is less well paid than full- time work; emphasises the fact that the vast majority of low salaries and almost all very low salaries are paid for part-time work and points out that about 80% of the working poor are women;
Amendment 194 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10 c (new)
Paragraph 10 c (new)
10c. Calls on the Member States, employers and trade union movements to draft and implement serviceable, specific job evaluation tools to help determine work of equal value and thus to ensure equal pay between men and women; encourages firms to carry out annual equal pay audits, to publish the data with the highest possible level of transparency and to narrow the gender pay gap;
Amendment 197 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 a (new)
Paragraph 11 a (new)
11a. Maintains that poverty among women, in particular among older women, single mothers, women victims of gender-based violence, women with disabilities, migrant women, women refugees and asylum seekers, and women from minorities, needs to be tackled as a matter of urgency; calls on the Member States, therefore, to implement more effective inclusion strategies and make more efficient use of social policy resources, not least the European Social Fund and the Structural Funds;
Amendment 199 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Congratulates the Government of Sweden on achieving parity in representation in view of gender, and Slovenia and France on achieving virtual parity, and encourages Hungary, Slovakia and Greece, which have formed governments without any women, to ensure that women are sufficiently represented in all levels of political and economic decision-making; calls on the Member States to do all they can to guarantee gender parity in high-level positions in their governments, public institutions and bodies, and on electoral lists, in order to ensure that there is equal representation in local councils and in regional and national parliaments, as well as in the European Parliament;
Amendment 200 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12 a (new)
Paragraph 12 a (new)
12a. Emphasises that the clear under- representation of women in elected and nominated political positions at EU and Member State level is a democratic deficit that undermines the legitimacy of decision-making at both EU and national level;
Amendment 201 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12 b (new)
Paragraph 12 b (new)
12c. Stresses that various studies have shown that appropriate legislative measures could result in rapid changes to the gender balance in the political sphere1a; shares the Commission’s opinion that, if they are to be effective, quotas should be accompanied by legislation concerning the order of candidate lists and appropriate sanctions in the case of violation1b; __________________ 1a European Parliament (2013), Electoral gender quotas and their implementation in Europe — update 2013; 1b2015 Report on Equality between women and men, SDW(2016)54 final, page 17
Amendment 204 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 a (new)
Paragraph 13 a (new)
13a. Points out that the increased proportion of women sitting on the management boards of large companies listed on the stock exchange (from 11.9% in 2010 to 22.7% in 2015) is largely the result of significant changes in the Member States whose governments have taken legislative action or implemented a company-driven voluntary framework with clearly defined objectives and subject to regular monitoring 1c; __________________ 1c2015 Report on Equality between women and men, SDW(2016)54 final, page 18
Amendment 209 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14 a (new)
Paragraph 14 a (new)
14a. Deplores the fact that only one Member State has achieved gender parity in top higher education establishment posts, while welcoming the fact that female representation in said positions has generally improved;
Amendment 215 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Urges the Member States to prevent and respond to all types of violence against women and to put in place further prevention strategies, to make widely available specialised support and protection services so that all victims can access them and to focus special attention on gender-specific aspects of victims’ rights when reporting on the implementation of the Victims’ Rights Directive in 2017; calls on the Commission to launch a European register of European protection orders to complement EU legislation on victim protection;
Amendment 222 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Welcomes the progress of the Member States in signing the Istanbul Convention, and urges those that have not yet ratified it to do so without delay; repeats its call for EU accession to the Convention in 2016; calls on the Commission to present as soon as possible a European Strategy for preventing and combating gender-based violence and to assess the possibility of initiating an EU legislative act to end and prevent violence against women in all Member States;
Amendment 225 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17 a (new)
Paragraph 17 a (new)
17a. Calls on the Council of the EU to apply the ‘passerelle clause’ and adopt a unanimous decision defining gender violence as one of the areas of crime listed in Article 83(1) TFEU, as it concerns the trafficking of human beings and the sexual exploitation of women and girls;
Amendment 226 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17 b (new)
Paragraph 17 b (new)
17b. Calls, once again, on the Commission to set up a European monitoring centre on gender violence (along the lines of the current European Institute for Gender Equality), to be led by a European coordinator for the prevention of violence against women and girls;
Amendment 258 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22 a (new)
Paragraph 22 a (new)
22a. Stresses the importance of active prevention, education and information policies for teenagers, young people and adults to ensure that EU citizens benefit from good sexual and reproductive health, and avoid sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies;
Amendment 260 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22 b (new)
Paragraph 22 b (new)
22b. 14c. Stresses that sexual and reproductive health and the associated rights are fundamental human rights which should be defended, respected and promoted, and therefore calls for their inclusion in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Article 35 of which already recognises the rights to health;
Amendment 272 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 25 a (new)
Paragraph 25 a (new)
25a. Calls for efforts to be stepped up at national and EU level to combat the persistence of stereotypes and gender- based discrimination, through awareness- raising campaigns targeted to all levels of society, a greater use of the media, strategies to encourage women to choose careers and professions in which women are under-represented and men to take on their fair share of family and domestic tasks, and the inclusion of gender issues in primary and secondary teaching material;
Amendment 274 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 25 b (new)
Paragraph 25 b (new)
25b. Urge the media and the advertising sphere to respect the dignity of women and their right to a non-stereotyped and non-discriminatory portrayal, and to stop using the female stereotypes of youth, beauty and sexual allure as a model of social success, as is the case in both the public and private media; calls on them to publicise healthy lifestyles and disseminate different family models and styles of living, and images of women more in line with existing female diversity;
Amendment 275 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 25 c (new)
Paragraph 25 c (new)
25c. Calls on the Commission to develop a broader equality strategy, including a horizontal directive to tackle discrimination, with a view to eliminating gender-based discrimination in all its forms; to that effect, urges the Council to reach a common position as soon as possible on the proposal for a Council directive on implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of religion or belief, disability, age, gender or sexual orientation, which has been blocked since its adoption by Parliament in April 2009; calls on the Council to include gender as a factor of discrimination, as requested by the European Parliament;