Conference results and proposals

The conference “Women for Europe” started its work on 2nd July with a warm address delivered by Richard Descoings, Director of Sciences Po who recalled the importance of recreating the link between the people and the elites, a process in which higher education plays a vital formative role. He concluded by saying that “we have tried everything to make Europe a success except with regard to Women.”

Jean-Dominique Giuliani, Chairman of the Robert Schuman Foundation recalled the extreme importance and topicality of the debate on gender equality, a fundamental part of the values in the construction of Europe as well as Human Rights: “the first right of human rights is that of women.”

The Chairwoman of the association “Femmes, Débat and Société”, Florence Richard presented her association and its European objectives as well as the project’s aim to raise women’s awareness and the work achieved so far; she stressed how Europe and women are mutually driving forces.

Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the French Republic, and José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission sent their congratulations for the organisation of this conference expressing their commitment to the fight for parity and against discrimination. They are prepared to consider the conclusions and proposals that result from this debate. Before an audience of over 250 people, leading European women: MEPs, businesswomen, academics, civil servants as well as ngo representatives debated and put forward initiatives to bring European women closer to Europe. This implied many areas such as education, employment, research and development policies.

Five leading French and European personalities spoke during the debates: Vaira Vike-Freiberga, former President of Latvia, Vice president of the working group on the future of the European Union, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, Secretary of State in charge of European Affairs, Michel Barnier,

Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, Secretary of State in charge of Ecology and Meglena Kuneva, European Commissioner in charge of Consumer Protection.

« Women for Europe: what are the values we share? »

A CSA survey undertaken at the beginning of 2008 in preparation for the conference shows that women are more reticent than men about the construction of Europe: 66% of them support Europe in comparison with 71% of men. Why is there more mistrust amongst women with regard to the European project?

Pascale Joannin, General Manager of the Robert Schuman Foundation and specialist on European issues believes that women are not euro-sceptic but expect real action on the part of Europe in areas that are not of the EU’s competence but which are the responsibility of the Member States, for example in terms of employment, education, healthcare.

“Women want to make Europe slightly different from what it is. Today we see (…) that there is a dichotomy between women’s expectations and reality. This is quite simply because women’s expectations in terms of Europe are quite specific. These expectations are doomed to be disappointed because they expect things of Europe which are not of its competence.”

According to Véronique Paulus de Châtelet, Governor of Brussels a second explanation of female reticence with regard to Europe is, “its, failure in terms of communication”. Indeed the European institutions communicate badly; the Member States use Brussels as a scapegoat and European citizens have no means of expressing their opinion.

Proposals

• Ensuring true parity in the European Parliament and male/female parity in the choice of leading candidates in the upcoming European elections (in France at least 4 women heading lists in 8 of the French constituencies

• Put an end to “top down” communication and promote “bottom up” communication; in other words giving women more “airtime”

• Give women more power (“empowerment”) or, according to Vaira Vike-Freiberga, “some values that are uniquely masculine should be rejected, such as the right to power”

• Settle the new challenges at the start of the 21^st century: the impoverishment of single parent families mostly run by women and the situation of immigrant women

• Harmonise women’s rights in the 27 Member States of the European Union

« Europe boosts girls and women »

(Education, higher education, research, work)

« Europe is an opportunity for women.» Although male/female equality, including equality of remuneration is included in the founding texts of the EU surveys and investigations in the field reveal inequality between genders in the professional domain. Women fall victim to many types of discrimination: inequality of remuneration, difficulty in gaining promotion (the “glass ceiling”), under representation of women in science, under representation of women in politics and on company boards.

Proposals

• Improving dialogue between companies and educational establishments (schools and universities), which notably means improving continuous training and measures to aid women’s careers

• Strengthening female models with whom women can identify in order to engage in so-called masculine careers: Marie Curie is the only female scientist to be identified in the entire world

• Promoting benchmarking and increasing the visibility of those which exist, for example in the Netherlands 50% of the major companies have signed a Charter of Good Practice in favour of women

• Develop the practice of “naming and shaming” by indicating the poor running of a company r administration thereby enabling rapid selfcorrection

• “Selling scientific careers” to women by showing hem how they contribute to results since it is via their achievements that women are prepared to make a personal investment.

• Adopting “a balanced gender recruitment policy” to safeguard diversity, believed to be a source of wealth and a guarantee of quality for companies

« European women for a humanist view of globalisation »

Even though it is difficult to speak of a European social model we need to think of the values that Europe has to provide to the world where increasingly emerging countries are asserting themselves. Women place importance on the European social and economic view they would like to give to the rest of the world. Which values can European women bring to globalisation?

Proposals

• Not only promoting social values and the right to work but also Human Rights, Democracy and the

State of Law

• Developing a social vision of globalisation: “globalisation cannot be reduced simply down to the economy”. Amongst the values which women carry, justice is a European value which evokes both equality and also difference.

• Guaranteeing a certain type of social justice as globalisation progresses.

• “Encouraging local competence” and therefore promoting sustainable development.

• Asserting territorial wealth

• Developing the micro-loan to increase the fight against poverty within the EU and in developing countries

• Promoting women’s role as a bridge between generations as well as facilitators of interactions which benefit to us all

Conclusion

During this day of debate speakers and participants wanted to send an important message to both men and women in power. Even though in Europe gender equality has been acknowledged as a founding principle there is still a great deal of work to do to achieve parity. In the immediate future three measures were put forward:

• Guaranteeing equality of the leading names of the lists in France for the upcoming European elections in June 2009 (in France 4 of the 8 constituencies)

• Promoting scientific careers amongst women

• Developing and promoting a social vision of globalisation which includes sustainable development

Download the minute of the conference