Tal vid invigningen av EU:s jämställdhetsmyndighet

Tal av Eva-Britt Svensson (V), EU-parlamentariker och ordförande i EU-parlamentets jämställdhetsutskott, vid invigningen av EU:s jämställdhetsmyndighet, Vilnius, Litauen 21 juni 2010.


Good morning
Madame President of Lithuania
Madame Minister
Commissioner Reding
Ladies and gentlemen

I would like to start by saying how delighted I am to stand before you today and address you at the grand opening of the European Institute for Gender Equality. In my capacity as Chair of the Committee for Women's Rights and Gender Equality of the European Parliament I would like to assure you of our deepest commitment to working together with the Institute. It is an important mission you have been given. The objective of the Institute is to contribute to and strengthen the promotion of gender equality, including gender mainstreaming in all of the policies of the European Union. This is no small task. I would add that the ultimate aim of the Committee I Chair, the FEMM Committee, is the same, though we do have a different role.

There are two necessary ingredients to a successful recipe for gender equality promotion. The first is the political will. This we have! As you have just heard from the speakers before me. The next is the knowledge and the resources. In the FEMM Committee we work towards gender equality but we feel a need for studies and further investigation into trends and tendencies. I see a key role for the Institute in guiding us to academically sound and gender aware studies. We need a closer look at all data and analysis of the differences between men and women. We take an interest in what policies have been tried and what results they gave. If you allow me I will give you a concrete example of our work and how we could benefit from the Institute's coming work.

In my Committee later this week we will discuss a report on the role of women in an ageing society. To start with the role of women is clearly important in the sense that women are the main carers in our societies. As you may be aware it continues to be the case that every man-hour spent looking after children or carrying out household activities is matched by three woman-hours. This situation exists for many women throughout their lifetime and continues into their retirement when they devote much more time to looking after dependant relatives, elderly persons and children than do their male counterparts. The fact of having clear figures on the extent of the difference between men an women, of one hour compared with three hours, is essential for us.

There is a new striking figure included in the report we will discuss and it is more data of this kind that I would like to ask for. We all know that the role of women in an ageing society is central as there are more elderly women because the life expectancy of women is longer. The fact that women live longer is common knowledge. But did you know that statistically men can expect to be unhealthy for six years towards the end of their life and women can expect to be unhealthy for twenty years towards the end of their life. This data deepens our understanding of the difference in life expectancy and is an important element for us as legislators trying to address gender inequality.

Highest on my wish list of what the Institute can help us with is providing reliable, and comparable data, both at national and EU level. We need to know the current situation in order to decide how it can be improved.

The first ingredient in the recipe to address gender inequality is political will and we have seen that today that will is strong. The history books will note that it was at the Nice European Council in December 2000 that the idea of the Institute was agreed on. The treaties of the European Union have always emphasised gender equality but now they had a precise text where they agreed to "increase awareness, pool resources and exchange experience, in particular through the establishment of a European Institute for gender issues’. I am proud to say today that I took part in the decision in the plenary of the European Parliament in 2006 when the regulation establishing the Institute was adopted. Now ten years later the Institute is reality. I am especially happy that this opening is taking place here in Vilnius in Lithuania.

Let me conclude by saying on a more personal note that we need to work daily to change our societies where women do not have the right to their own bodies, where they are abused and beaten because of their sex, where the political and economic power still lies mostly in the hands of men. This institute is a great step on the path to change all this. It will be the place where problems can be identified and solutions proposed. I know it can and will make a big difference. Thank you for listening.


Mer info om jämställdhetsmyndigheten:
http://www.eige.europa.eu/


För mer information, kontakta:
Eva-Britt Svensson (V), EU-parlamentariker
Svensk mobil: 070 633 13 46
Roger Falk, pressekreterare: +32 473 80 45 79
Blogg http://www.evabrittsvensson.se
Twitter http://twitter.com/EvaBrittEU
Hemsida: www.vguengl.org (foton finns i "Pressrummet")