GENDER EQUALITY : EUROPEAN PACT COULD REMAIN LIMITED TO BASIC PRINCIPLES.

The European Pact for Gender Equality, currently being developed by the Hungarian Presidency of the EU, contains neither legislative measures nor definite objectives, according to information obtained by Europolitics social.

The document, intended to accompany the European Commission's gender equality strategy for 2010-2015, will not elicit great hopes among the organisations working to promote gender equality in the light of the "limited impact of its predecessors," as the European Women's Lobby described it. According to the lobby, the 2006 Pact for Gender Equality (which accompanied the Commission's road map for the period 2005-2010), was "very short, imprecise and largely ignored".

The new pact, which is still at the development stage, is longer: six pages, compared with two in 2006. However, the latest information shows that member states are not showing a great deal more ambition this time around. The document calls for measures to remove demographic barriers by promoting a better balance between professional and private life. It also addresses areas such as salary inequality, discrimination on the employment market and violence against women. Elsewhere, the text refers to the commitment made by European heads of state, in Barcelona in 2002, to establish structures by 2010 to provide child care facilities for at least 90% of children between three years old and...