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the report (A5-0198/2000) by Mrs Dybkjær, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, on the Commission annual reports 'Equal Opportunities for Women and Men in the European Union - 1997, 1998, 1999'.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is the third time I have had the pleasure of addressing the House since the French Presidency began. I first addressed the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities on 11 July and, on 5 September, I made a statement about the monitoring centre for industrial change.

Today, I am here to talk about balanced participation by men and women in all areas of society.

The motion for a resolution on the Commission' s reports that you will be voting on later goes into great detail on the subject.

I would like to comment on three points highlighted by Mrs Dybkjær, and I commend the quality of her work as rapporteur to this House.

First, as regards the need for regular assessment and monitoring of equality at every level regarding work, employment, education, training, family life, health, and the dignity of women, we will only be able to make significant progress if we have the most accurate intelligence on every aspect underlying discrimination.

The second point relates to the new information and communication technologies.

This emerging sector is opening up greater access to the world of work for women.

We must make sure the gaps in this area are reduced.

We must make sure women benefit from the new jobs generated, while avoiding reproducing the inequalities that exist in more traditional sectors: less skilled jobs, part-time work (sometimes not by choice), insecure contracts and difficulties put in the way of access to decision-making posts.

Thirdly and finally, I think the proposal to make implementation of the principle of equal treatment a selection criterion for any Community aid or funding is essential to promoting equality.

Because equality is a major political issue we are going to use a number of events to give it prominence during the French Presidency.

I am primarily here today, of course, to discuss those events.

We have organised a Ministerial Conference in Paris.

It will be held on 27 October.

I have naturally invited Mr Rocard, my eminent fellow countryman, the Chairman of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, and Mrs Theorin, Chair of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.

We will also be organising a Conference on Professional Equality on 24 November, bringing together experts, social partners and company managers, to look at the obstacles in the career paths of women.

I shall not, however, be talking about the Conference on Professional Equality so much as the issues I have put on the agenda for the Ministerial Conference on 27 October.

Three issues will be tackled, and they are issues also dealt with in the Presidency' s major documents, either in the Fifth Action Programme or the Social Agenda.

The three subjects on the agenda for the Ministerial Conference are balanced participation by women and men in decision-making, combining work and family life, and including equality in several structures of the European Union Council of Ministers.

The first issue, women' s participation in decision-making in all areas, shows the serious deficit women still suffer from today in comparison with men.

That is a democratic deficit which is less and less tolerated nowadays.

Perhaps some of you remember the Paris Conference of April 1999, when we reached agreement on a statement, but, with fifteen Ministers, had great difficulty deciding on a plan of action with quantified targets.

That is why I decided to seize the opportunity afforded by the Presidency' s major documents, this time, to move that action plan forward.

I can tell you that my country has now marked a crucial milestone as regards women' s participation in decision-making.

Very briefly, a reform of the constitution was adopted on 28 June 1999 in France, with the support of the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic, and immediately afterwards we began debating a bill on parity, which was adopted on 3 May 2000.

This law will be applied to all elections, including local elections from 2001.

So, at the risk of seeing their electoral lists invalidated or not having their campaign costs refunded, the political parties must present lists with equal numbers of men and women placed alternately to prevent women being relegated to positions where they have little chance of getting elected.

I feel sure that balanced participation of women in political decision-making would produce a genuine renewal of our whole political life.

Such power sharing will bring with it other profound changes in economic, social and cultural life.

The Beijing Platform for Action and the final outcome document of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Beijing + 5, last June, are along the same lines.

The Finnish Presidency' s report on women and decision-making sets out clear indicators for evaluating the progress made.

I also want to salute the Commission' s initiative - I think my information is correct, Mrs Diamantopoulou - in taking a decision to have parity between men and women within its committees and groups of experts.

We must all commit ourselves to following and developing this encouraging initiative.

The French Presidency would like to make progress in this matter and hopes to approach its partners with proposals for quantified targets for giving women access to decision-making in all areas, the political arena, which I have already mentioned, but also economic and social sectors.

Initial consultations undertaken by the French Presidency confirm that this is a central concern in all Member States.

I do not mean to imply that we have already reached agreement on the quantified targets, but I can assure you I am putting a good deal of effort into getting that agreement.

The second issue for this Ministerial Conference will cover combining work and family life.

Following the example of Finland, a questionnaire has been sent to all the Member States and this will be followed very shortly by a report.

A proposal on indicators to measure progress will be put before the Council.

I was hoping to make this issue an important one in the Presidency' s programme so as to ensure continuity of the work done under the Portuguese Presidency.

I am thinking of the Evora seminar on maternity and paternity and the resolution on balanced participation by men and women in family life and at work.

Because we know that as long as women have to carry the burden of a double working day alone they will continue to face a dilemma between their private and family lives and between their working lives and their lives as citizens.

Indeed, as I always say in France, ladies and gentlemen, while a law to impose parity in politics is now within the bounds of possibility, it is more difficult to impose parity in daily life, domestic parity, by law.

Just as the public arena should not be a male monopoly, the private sphere should no longer be the exclusive domain of women.

That is why new methods of organising time must be considered, so that all those involved - parents, children, citizens, elected representatives, businesses - have their proper place.

This will be one of the strong points of the Ministerial Conference.

Let me add that I have also put this item on the agenda of the Conference on Professional Equality of 24 November.

The third issue for the Ministerial Conference will cover the incorporation of gender equality into the work of the various European Union Councils of Ministers.

I hope to initiate a process I have used as a working method in France, a method that works well.

For the first time, several Councils of Ministers will be dealing with gender equality by linking it with one of the items on their agenda.

To give you a couple of examples: at the Education Council there is the issue of mobility of men and women students and teachers, because we have recognised that there is major inequality in mobility; and at the Internal Market, Consumption and Tourism Council there is an item on the development of electronic commerce so as to make it accessible to all, both men and women, because we know there is gender inequality in electronic commerce too.

In addition to the Ministerial Conference and the Conference on Professional Equality, I should also mention two very important documents specifically devoted to equality, but within the area of competence of the Employment and Social Affairs Council.

I am thinking of the Fifth Action Programme and the amendment of the 1976 Directive.

On the Fifth Action Programme, I would first like to wholeheartedly thank Mrs Theorin and the rapporteur, Mrs Eriksson, for their work which will, I hope, make it possible to adopt the programme before the end of the year.

I know Parliament will be particularly concerned about mainstreaming and the implementation of strategic objectives relating to equality in economic and social life, and - to return to this point once again - balanced participation in decision-making.

For my part, I undertake to ensure that the programme' s funding matches up to our ambitions.

By the same token, it falls to us to review the 1976 Directive, 25 years after its adoption.

This review will not only bring the law into line with the many rulings from the Court of Justice, but will also incorporate other very important points into Community legislation.

I am thinking, for example, of sexual harassment as gender-based discrimination.

The notion of indirect discrimination will be more precisely defined and the derogations from equal treatment supported better.

This is a particularly important advance for women, as Mrs Hautala is sure to emphasise when she presents her report to Parliament on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.

Going beyond the specific issues falling within the scope of my ministry, I want to mention three initiatives, very briefly.

First of all, the guidelines for employment, this time fleshed out with quantified targets, which propose to increase the employment rate for women to 60% by 2010.

The role of the social partners is also strengthened, and I am very pleased about that.

Finally, in a word, the fourth pillar devoted to equal opportunities reinforces the integrated approach to equality through gender mainstreaming and through specific guidelines.

The second initiative I want to mention relates to the social agenda to be submitted to the Nice Summit, next December.

This is one of the Presidency' s great priorities and, as you know, it opens up a broad field of action in employment, and clearly makes the point that combining work and family life makes a contribution to this.

Personally, I would like to see this issue taken into account even more specifically in the social agenda.

I think we can all congratulate ourselves on the fact that the agenda contains a chapter devoted to the promotion of gender equality and, in that area too, I hope we will progress towards quantified targets.

The last initiative I want to stress concerns the drafting of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

As you know, the draft is the outcome of complex negotiations which were completed on 26 September.

The document will be submitted to the Biarritz European Council in a few days' time.

I shall stress our commitment to having the articles relating to gender equality clearly set out in the Charter.

I am frequently asked about this.

I know I have already used up my speaking time so I shall be very brief, but there are a few things I need to make clear.

Three articles in the Charter are devoted to gender equality.

The first is devoted to the general principle of the equality of all persons under the law.

The second relates to the principle of non-discrimination, including that based on gender.

The third affirms the principle of equal pay and equal treatment, together with the possibility of undertaking positive action in favour of the under-represented sex.

Combining work and family life, entitlement to paid maternity leave, rights of a more general scope, such as the right to dignity and the right to respect for their physical and mental integrity, also appear in the Charter.

So all these provisions make this document an additional instrument underpinning equality.

Civil society' s expectations are high, and this has not escaped the members of the Convention, who are anxious to have a gender-correct Charter.

In conclusion, I repeat that the Community level is the right one for making progress together in all the areas I have mentioned, but it is also the right level for making progress on many other issues of concern to women.

I am thinking in particular of the violence they suffer, one of my priorities for government action, and I know that is a specific issue that impels you to action too.

Any progress we make in one Member State is progress for the other Member States.

If national policies are enriched by Community policies, then Community policies must also be inspired by national experiences.

I am convinced that together - Parliament, Council and Commission, but also Member States, social partners and non-governmental organisations - we will make progress and I know - we know - that equality between women and men is on the move.

Mr President, I should like to begin by welcoming Mrs Péry back to Parliament.

Those of us who have previously heard her in Parliament know that, with her as President-in-Office of the Council, we have a very committed spokesperson for women' s issues, and that is something we need if our plans are to succeed at all.

In the committee, we combined three reports from the Commission and dealt with them together.

On behalf of the committee, I can promise that, in future, we shall attend to the reports in time so that the Commission does not feel it is engaged on a major task, but that we in the committee are ignoring the fact and not getting our reports ready in time.

We have promised ourselves that this will not happen in future.

All three reports - I shall return to the speech of the President-in-Office of the Council in a moment - call attention to the articles of the Treaty of Amsterdam and say that, in these, we have obtained a new and sound basis for working on the issue of equality in the Commission and that we have also obtained a number of tools for implementing equality in the different Member States in a way we were unable to do before.

This is something which, as women, we should be pleased about.

We can say that almost all women have worked hard to achieve a better Treaty where equality is concerned, and I therefore think that we can be quietly pleased with the fifteen men who sat and adopted the Treaty of Amsterdam and were therefore also involved in implementing the principles of equality, even though it cannot, of course, be said that there is much in the way of obvious equality in their own Assembly.

There is really a paradox in the fact that we in the EU have, on the one hand, an outstanding basis for equality - especially now with the Treaty of Amsterdam - but that, on the other hand, there are fifteen men in the European Council who make all the decisions, something I shall refrain from commenting further upon.

It therefore becomes obvious in one way or another that there is a difference between principles and concrete implementation.

I am also saying this because I think it is incredibly important that the EU should be given a stronger women' s perspective, and I say this for two reasons.

First of all, we have had a referendum in Denmark which clearly showed that women, more than men, are opposed to this project, and not merely the project involving the euro but the EU project as a whole.