madam president it is nice that on the one hundredth anniversary of international women's day this house is guided by a woman
i think that is very symbolic and it is also very symbolic that we can during this day debate these very important issues on the agenda thanks to the rapporteur mariya nedelcheva which shows a great support for the commission's work towards gender equality and focuses on important issues that the commission has emphasised and will continue to emphasise
one hundred years of struggle and we still do not see the end of it
i regret that because i always hope that we can eliminate if you like the yearly celebration of the struggle of women but as long as we have not arrived there we cannot do so and we have not arrived there yet
parliament's report shows very clearly what the gaps are
the gaps are in poverty we have heard the second report on this too
on poverty women are leading so there is not a gap in this sense but what are we doing and my colleague lászlo andor will answer this to get women out of the poverty trap
the second element is women in the world of employment
there are still some problems concerning the balance between family life and professional life
there is the problem of the pay gap where women still earn seventeen less on average than men and you might have seen that on five march we had the european gender pay gap day with measurements to see how much more women have to work than men in order to reach the same level of pay
the fact is that we were in effect not paid until five march we had to work until then without being paid
only from five march on did we start to be paid
i hope that one day the gender pay gap day will be on one january which would mean that there would be equal pay at that moment
the political commitment of the european commission is contained in our new strategy
the themes which are mentioned in our strategy for gender equality are the same as the ones the rapporteur has mentioned economic independence for women gender pay gap violence against women and promoting gender equality in external actions
to start with external actions you might have seen cathy ashton and myself on eight march speaking to women outside of europe and saluting the courage of all those women who are fighting to survive and who are fighting for the establishment of a democracy we need to make it clear that we are standing by their side
speaking about all these upheavals speaking about the wars and speaking about the genocides which unfortunately continue to go on you all know that women are in the front row
women and children are the most vulnerable in our societies but also in the societies outside and that is why the commission is working to streamline its various policy initiatives on violence against women and to create synergies between areas with similar objectives
so this is where we are in developing a coherent policy response to tackle this huge problem my link is concrete actions in areas where there are clear legal bases in order to have efficiency and in this regard i am going to present a victims rights package in may this year in which legislation to help women and children will of course be very high on the agenda
maybe i should finish with a theme which has been high on the agenda in these last few days
you know that on one march i brought the ceos of large european listed companies around a table to tell them that we do not agree anymore with the ninety quota for men on boards of directors because that is what is happening
there is only one woman for ten men on boards which means a ninety de facto quota for men
so we think that this should be tackled mainly because all the economic evidence and the scientific evidence on economic functioning shows very clearly that companies with an balanced decision-making structure have a higher return on investment and make more profits than companies with solely male decision-making structures
so women mean business it is in the interests of economic development that women take more responsibility
here i have challenged publicly listed companies in europe to sign a women on the board pledge for europe by march twenty twelve to pledge to replace outgoing gentlemen on the board by qualified women and there are so many that it should not be difficult to find these women
we are going to see to observe to analyse and to count what is happening between today and eight march next year and if nothing changes then i am prepared to take action at eu level to redress the gender balance in corporate board rooms
