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EU Equal Opportunities: Gender Equality and Anti-discrimination

Gender Equality

The European Commission's annual report to the Spring European Council on equality between women and men underlines the persisting challenges for gender equality in Europe and calls for a stronger gender dimension as part of the EU's future strategy for growth and jobs. It stresses that gender equality is a precondition for growth, employment and social cohesion, and must therefore be considered as part of the solution for exiting the crisis. Read the report following the link below

Report: Equality between women and men 2010

EU Gender Equality
Funding Programmes
Publications

EU Gender Equality

The EU has a long-standing commitment to promoting gender equality, enshrined in the EC Treaty since 1957. The Community legal framework ensures that women and men are equal before the law. The promotion of gender equality is an important element of the European Union's external relations and of its development cooperation policies and, in particular, the promotion and protection of women's rights is an integral part of the EU's human rights policies in third countries. Moreover, equal treatment legislation is a firmly established integral part of the acquis communautaire that countries applying for EU membership have to respect.

2006-2010 Gender Roadmap

The EU's roadmap for equality between women and men, adopted on 1 March 2006, sets out the priorities for the period 2006-2010. It combines specific initiatives and the integration of equality between women and men into all EU policies and activities ("gender mainstreaming")

The Roadmap represents the Commission's commitment to driving the gender equality agenda forward as well as reinforcing partnership with Member States, and other actors.

It outlines six priority areas for EU action on gender equality:

• Equal economic independence for women and men;
• Reconciliation of private and professional life;
• Equal representation in decision-making;
• Eradication of all forms of gender-based violence;
• Elimination of gender stereotypes;
• Promotion of gender equality in external and development policies.

The Roadmap foresees the improvement of the governance of gender equality.

For each area, it identifies priority objectives and actions. It will be followed by an implementation report in 2008 and an evaluation with a follow-up proposal in 2010.

EU funding

PROGRESS (2007-2013) is a financial programme for supporting the effective implementation of the principle of gender equality and promoting gender mainstreaming in all EU policies. The European Social Fund also promotes equality between women and men.

Publications

Report: Equality between women and men - 2009

Report on equality between women and men 2008 (22-02-2008)

Report on gender mainstreaming
The EC's Expert Group on Gender, Social Inclusion and Employment (EGGSIE) has just published a report on gender mainstreaming of employment. It analyses in detail how gender mainstreaming is implemented in the employment policies of 30 European countries (EU-27 and the EEA-EFTA countries). It also presents concrete examples of gender mainstreaming implemented over the last few years in the countries covered. Read report>>

Final report of the Genderwise project
QeC ERAN published the final report of the Genderwise project which supports the development of integrated Local and Regional Action Plans for Gender Equality, with a specific focus on developing and promoting the role of men as change agents in the reconciliation of work and family life. Read more about project>>, go directly to final report>>

Gender discrimination and health systems
The European Parliament's Women's Rights Committee adopted a report on gender discrimination and the health system on 14 July this year. The report highlights the enormous impact gender discrimination has on health and calls for research into different areas relating to gender and health. It also stresses the importance of developing the gender perspective in health strategies on national and European level. Go to report>>

EU Gender Equality Report 2005
The European Commission has just published a Gender Equality report for 2005.It shows that while gender employment and education gaps are closing in the EU, the gender pay gap has remained almost unchanged. The report is available in French or English.

Eurostat has carried out a series of European surveys and studies on Gender issues. For more information click here>>

The Ministry for Family, the Eldery, Women and Youth of the Federal Republic of Germany has created a European data bank of women in decision-making positions. For more information click here>>

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Anti-Discrimination

EU Anti-Discrimination
Funding Programmes
Organisation active in the field of monitoring and research
General data and publications

EU Anti-Discrimination

Since 2000, in addition to laws covering the equal treatment of men and women, EU anti-discrimination legislation has been in place to ensure minimum levels of equal treatment and protection for everyone living and working in Europe. These laws are designed to ensure equal treatment irrespective of:

• Racial or ethnic origin
• Religion and belief
• Disability
• Sexual Orientation
• Age

These laws aim to ensure equal treatment in many aspects of daily life - from the workplace, to issues covering education, healthcare and access to goods and services.

Informing people of their rights and obligations under EU equality legislation is of key importance to the European Commission.

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Funding programmes

The PROGRESS financial programme (2007-2013) supports the effective implementation of the principles of anti-discrimination in all EU policies. The European Social Fund also promotes equality in the widest sense

Organisation active in the field of monitoring and research:

European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia
The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUM) was established in June 1997 and is based in Vienna, Austria.The primary task of EUMC is to provide the Community and its Member States with objective, reliable and comparable information and data on racism, xenophobia, islamophobia and anti-Semitism at the European level in order to help the EU and its Member States to establish measures or formulate courses actions against racism and xenophobia.
Go to EUMC website

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI)
ECRI is a mechanism which was established by the first Summit of Heads of State and Government of the member States of the Council of Europe. The decision to establish ECRI is contained in the Vienna Declaration adopted by the first Summit on 9 October 1993. The European Conference against Racism, held in Strasbourg in October 2000, called for the strengthening of ECRI’s action. On 13 June 2002, the Committee of Ministers adopted a new Statute for ECRI, consolidating its role as an independent human rights monitoring body on issues related to racism and racial discrimination.

ECRI's task is to combat racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance at the level of greater Europe and from the perspective of the protection of human rights. ECRI's action covers all necessary measures to combat violence, discrimination and prejudice faced by persons or groups of persons, notably on grounds of 'race', colour, language, religion, nationality and national or ethnic origin.
Go to ECRI website

European Network Against Racism
ENAR, a network of European NGOs working to combat racism in all the EU member states, is a major outcome of the 1997 European Year Against Racism. The establishment of ENAR endorses the recognition by NGOs of the European dimension to the fight against racism. Anti-racist NGOs feel that they have a lot to gain from a network as a forum to share information, and influence policies across the European Union through campaigns. Go to ENAR website

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General data and publications

Udiex Alep Skills and Training Audit and Final Report
The Urban Diversity and Inclusion Exchange: an action-learning programme for the transfer of experience and staff development is a thematic network of 24 EU partners and 3 partners from new member states which view the issues of diversity, integration and inclusion as core issues in relation to exchanging good practice and increasing the capacity of 300-400 key participants from a multi-sector, multi-discipline, multi-agency back-ground.
Read Skills and Training Audit>>
go to Udiex Alep website>>
read final report>>

Survey on anti-discrimination
The European Year for Equal Opportunities for All has launched a new website and published the results of an EU survey on anti-discrimination. The survey - carried out in preparation for the European Year - reveals that over half of Europeans (51%) think that not enough is being done to fight discrimination in their country and a large majority of respondents also feel that discrimination is widespread (64%). Read full report>>, read summary report>>

Common Measures for Discrimination
A two-year project funded under the Community Action Programme to combat discrimination, has issued a new report on improving the measurement of discrimination by linking different sources of data together. The project aims to develop recommendations on how to measure ethnic discrimination in a way that is representative, comparable and allows for the description of trends.The 100-page report presents a general overview of how multiple data sources can be combined to deliver a clear and accurate picture of discrimination.

Comparative analysis of anti-discrimination laws
The European Commission's Network of Legal Experts in non-discrimination has issued a new comparative analysis of anti-discrimination laws in the 25 EU Member States. The report compares the different national laws, identifying trends and common aspects in implementation of the two Directives and provides a comprehensive overview of national legislation to combat discrimination across the EU. The report is available in English, French and German.

Equal Opportunity
14 DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities publications are now available in electronic format. Read more>>