International Women's Day 2022: A lot remains to be done for gender equality

“In 2022, still a lot remains to be done to end violence against women and girls and structural social and economic gender disadvantages. I am however encouraged that at the EU level progress is tangible on several policy files that could help achieve more equality for women.

Today, the European Commission will table a long-awaited legislative proposal for a directive with binding measures for Member States to end violence against women and domestic violence. The proposal is historic but will, due to a lack of an EU legal competence to go further, stay limited mostly on issues related to the prosecution of online violence and legal definition of rape and sexual exploitation of women. This is why it is all the more important to also move on with the EU’s long-pending accession to the Council of Europe’s much broader Istanbul Convention. I call on the Member States acting in the Council to adopt a proposal by the European Commission on this which has been on the table for six years.

I am also encouraged to see progress on a new EU directive with obligatory pay transparency measures. Trilogues for the adoption of this new piece of legislation are forthcoming this spring; it will be the responsibility of the European Parliament and the Council to agree on a final text that will bring effective and automatic pay transparency for all female workers in the EU. As trade unionists, we stress that this would clearly help close the considerable gender pay gaps which have been persisting throughout the EU and remain far too high.

Moreover, there seems to be – finally – movement again in relation to a further pending proposal of the European Commission for a directive on quotas for women on company boards. A directive on this proposal, which has been blocked by the Council for the last ten years, finally needs to see the light of day, and I am glad that to see that the Council appears to be in the process of reconsidering its filibustering. Statistics clearly show that soft law approaches for more women in managerial positions do not work sufficiently. We hope that the directive will also be a stimulus for further measures to increase the share of women in higher managerial positions in the public services too. Employment in the public services should be a role model for the economy at large, and should therefore also be a frontrunner in terms of gender representation in leadership positions.

Today, on International Women’s Day, is an important opportunity to raise visibility for urgently needed measures for more equality in Europe. There is no time to waste.”