Equal opportunities for women and men in the Union. 5th annual report 2000

The European Parliament adopted a resolution drawn up by its rapporteur Maria AVILES PEREA (EPP-ED, Spain) on equal opportunities in the EU. (Please refer to the document dated 26/02/02.) It regretted that few Member States have made efforts to integrate gender equality in their national action plans (NAPs) for 2000 and that many measures are still considered to be gender neutral. In the light of the Lisbon objectives, Member States should: - integrate the gender dimension in the employment policies covered by the first three pillars of the employment guidelines when drawing up their NAPs to implement those guidelines; - set specific objectives and adopt rules on positive action to desegregate the labour market; - introduce precise quantitative objectives and deadlines for reducing the pay gap; and - bring in comparable indicators and procedures for monitoring and assessing equal opportunities in all areas of employment. Parliament went on to suggest to the Commission that, when statistics and comparable tables are drawn up, the order in which countries are listed should go from best to worst in line with their results in the concept measures and their consequences for gender equality, and not in alphabetical order or order of protocol. It proposed that an index of gender development in the EU could be debated. In any event, bearing in mind that only 23% of businesses in the EU are owned by women, the Commission needs to tackle this issue directly by preparing a comprehensive report including precise and comparable data which will facilitate analysis and make it possible to identify the main problems in this area. The Commission should also draw up a progress report on the integration of the equal opportunities dimension in the Structural Funds.�