What has the EU done for women?

Debate concluded that the EU has improved women’s rights in the UK over the last 40 years.  But the future may not be so bright, reports Rachel Salmon, who was in the audience.

The European Parliament Information Office in the UK and the National Alliance of Women's Organisations hosted a debate on 7 March called 'What has the EU done for Gender Equality' to coincide with International Women's Day.

It was also one of the events organised to mark the 40th anniversary of Britain joining the EU.

One of the speakers, Dr Roberta Guerrina, Senior Lecturer and Head of the School of Politics at the University of Surrey believed the EU had been very instrumental in establishing employment rights for women.

“The introduction of the Equal Pay Act in 1970 was influenced by the prospect of accession, in that the UK would have had to implement it.

“The 1992 Pregnant Worker Directive and the 1996 Parental Leave Directive, which also included fathers, allows six months, albeit unpaid, and three months for the woman, which was non-transferrable.

"The UK has gone beyond these basic measures, but positive employment rights have consolidated women’s positions as workers.”

Justine Roberts, founder and CEO of Mumsnet, said she believed the EU needed to do more to publicise the good work it has done for women.

“Most are aware of maternity and part-time workers rights, but we can’t get away from the fact that even graduates have less pay.  There is still a lot to be done.

“It is important, given that we may have a referendum coming up.

"Women are delighted that they have time off to go to ante-natal clinic, but they don’t join the dots,” she said.

Marina Yannakoudakis, Conservative MEP for London, who was instrumental in blocking EU plans to give women 20 weeks maternity leave, said the EU did most for women’s rights when it worked together to prevent Female Genital Mutilation, sex trafficking and enforced marriage.

“I wouldn’t like the EU to push more legislation, particularly on small and medium sized businesses,” she said.

Labour MEP Mary Honeyball said she believed that some of the EU’s recent work to promote equal access to goods and services was breaking new ground for women.

She said that new EU regulations were forcing the insurance industry to take a close look at the way it worked so that women received the same pensions as men.

“If you get EU legislation it filters down and makes people look at what they are doing,” she pointed out.

Jacqueline Minor, head of the European Commission Representation in London, said that half of the staff employed by EU institutions were now women, but women make up only 28 per cent of the top three grades. When she joined it was just 10 per cent.

“We tend to find women in HR or coordinating jobs rather than hard policy jobs,” she said.

The EU was addressing this by encouraging more women to apply and taking measures to stop ‘cloning’, the tendency for managers to replace an employee with someone with similar skills and characteristics, which would work against women in a male-dominated workplace.

But there was concern that, in future, the EU may not be such a force for good for women.

“The accession of Central and Eastern European states has led to retrenchment.  There are a large number of socially conservative states sending Justices to the European Court of Justice.

“It has become much less an advocate for women’s rights, it is sitting on the fence, it is more conservative, especially when it comes to issues relating to care,” said Guerrina.

“In the southern states of the EU, women are actively discriminated against for having children.  Italy now has the lowest birth rate in the world.  Women have gone on strike because of the impact of non-equality,” she added.

“A lot of the impetus for change in the past came from the UK.

"The Equal Opportunities Commission and the Trades Unions were very clever at picking cases that would advance rights.

"This has slowed down of late,” she said.

There was also concern about David Cameron’s intention to renegotiate Britain’s EU membership if he wins the next UK election and plans to transfer powers, currently governed by the EU, back to the British parliament.

The TUC's General Secretary Frances O’Grady, was unable to attend. But in a written statement to the meeting, she said she did not believe repatriating powers from the EU would lead to improved social protection.

“As inequality grows and living standards fall I hope we will win the case for keeping Europe social for men and especially for women,” she wrote.

Honeyball believed Cameron’s talk of repatriation was wishful thinking.

“The UK won’t be in a position to put together a qualified majority which this will need.  I am not convinced by the negotiating skills of George Osborne or David Cameron,” she said.

Yannakoudakis said that Angela Merkel had welcomed Cameron’s latest speech about reshaping the EU.

“If we repatriate these powers, it doesn’t mean that all maternity rights will go away tomorrow,” she said.

But Roberts sounded a note of caution.

“Fifty one per cent of the voting population are female.

"It is unlikely that David Cameron would start messing with the gender equality rules. The women’s vote is important.

And she continued, "The Leader of the Conservative Party is not ranking as well as he once was."

“We know UKIP is doing well with some ex Tory voters,” she said.

And she said that when Mumsnet hosted a discussion with UKIP leader Nigel Farage he repeated Alan Sugar’s mantra that ‘no employer in his right mind would employ a women of child-bearing age’.

Story published in Women's Views on News, Friday, 15 March, 2013.