Press conference by Frances FITZGERALD (EPP, IE) and Evin INCIR (S&D, SE), Co-Rapporteurs, Robert BIEDROŃ (S&D, PL), Chair of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) and Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES), Chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) on Violence Against Women Directive. The legislation has the goal to enshrine minimum standards in EU law for criminalising certain forms of gender-based violence, improve access to justice, protection and support for victims, ensure coordination between relevant services, and prevent these types of crime. This transcription is a result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

Strasbourg

press conference

LÓPEZ AGUILAR, Juan Fernando (S&D, ES)

violence against women (T)

FITZGERALD, Frances (EPP, IE)

BIEDROŃ, Robert (S&D, PL)

INCIR, Evin (S&D, SE)

women's rights (T)

Press conference by Frances FITZGERALD (EPP, IE), Evin INCIR (S&D, SE), Robert BIEDROŃ (S&D, PL) and Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES) on Violence Against Women

SOUNDBITE (English), Frances FITZGERALD (EPP, IE), Rapporteur Thank you for staying here to hear this news, because we would say that today is a momentous day. It's a beginning, not an end. When we've reached agreement on the directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence, it's a clear message across the union that we take violence against women seriously and that we recognise it as an existential threat to the security of our Union. And together nearly 450 million people in three institutions say this "We will not stand for it".

SOUNDBITE (English), Frances FITZGERALD (EPP, IE), Rapporteur We have to take pressure and greater action. And this directive, I would say to you, is a building block in the right direction. There is unfinished business. Quite clearly, many of us would have got quite disturbing insights into the attitudes to rape in the member states when we could not get consent based definition of rape into the this directive. So that is a very big disappointment given the scale of the statistics of violence across the Union. I'm not going to go into those again today.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frances FITZGERALD (EPP, IE), Rapporteur I think most of you are familiar with how insidious this issue is, but we do believe the agreement we have come to today will really make a difference in all areas from prevention to protection to prosecution, and hopefully will push those horrendous numbers that we have right across Europe. They would push those numbers down of these serious crimes of violence against women.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frances FITZGERALD (EPP, IE), Rapporteur Very briefly, to say to much of the discussion around the directive has centred on the question of the inclusion of an offence of rape based on a lack of consent that was included from the Commission, it was included from the Parliament. However, the Council could not agree to this, they could not get a qualifying majority. But I do want to say thank you to the many Member States, 13 Member States, who joined us in wanting to see this, but the qualifying majority could not be reached by the work that the Council did. So that is extraordinarily disappointing.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frances FITZGERALD (EPP, IE), Rapporteur And as I have said, this is unfinished business for all of us. We have seen movements during the course of the negotiations. We saw more Member States joining, but clearly not enough. So, we could say a lot about the insights that has given to us about attitudes to rape and in particularly to consent. But some good news on that, which we will be mentioning to you, that aspect of the consent, because when we did not get rape included as an offence, what we did get is a new Article 36 bis, which is very important, which puts an obligation on the Member States to do far more work and awareness raising in relation to consent, in relation to rape, and puts more obligations on the Member States to work in this area.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frances FITZGERALD (EPP, IE), Rapporteur And we have laid down very important signal about the kind of roadmap that we want to see ahead in relation to the work that they need to do. We have seven other criminal offences. I don't have time to go into them here, but let's say for the first time that cyber violence is in a European directive. All aspects of cyber violence, forced marriages there and female genital mutilation, a serious crime inside Europe and outside Europe is also there. Plus the many other areas that we have mentioned. My colleague will go into some more detail on the consent issue that we have actually succeeded in getting just today and how important that is.

SOUNDBITE (English), Evin INCIR (S&D, SE), Rapporteur Thank you very much, Frances, and thank you very much to all of you and thank you for your patience. And also, I think that that we are late sends a clear signal that this directive and this piece of legislation is an important legislation for the parliament, for the commission, and also for the council, at least for the parliament. This is very, very clear. And we have also shown to that, of course, through having when comparing the different stance of the commission, the Council and the Parliament, that the Parliament actually had the more progressive, the strongest proposal in defence of women and girls all across our union.

SOUNDBITE (English), Evin INCIR (S&D, SE), Rapporteur I also just want to say that I have for many years during my time in politics, heard by generations of women before me that gender equality, the fight for women and girls have always been a struggle, so they have witnessed that. And I hope that 20, 24 that we would have reached longer, further than the generations of women before me. However, I have realised during this process that unfortunately we haven't reached that position, that I would at least have have wanted. I do not understand how to combat gender based violence. Combat violence against women and domestic violence can be so controversial that there are so many Member States that have been obstacle and prevent us to include a consent based rape legislation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Evin INCIR (S&D, SE), Rapporteur 'My co-rapporteur Frances however mentioned important and important wins not at least when it comes to protection, when it comes to early prevention, when it comes to prevention, when it comes to access to justice and data collection, and also two or three different offences. One is the female genital mutilation, the other is forced marriage. And the third, as France has mentioned, to step up our fight against the cyber violence, which is a huge violence that is on is on the increase and that is hitting women and girls all across the union. I want to just finally send a clear signal and I think that we all, including the shadow rapporteurs, are very clear that we want to call upon those member states that have prevented consent based rape legislation to consider.

SOUNDBITE (English), Evin INCIR (S&D, SE), Rapporteur What we are at least happy for is that we managed as a demand from the Parliament, include a revision clause. So in five years after the the directive has been implemented in the Member States, we hope to see there will be a revision and until then we hope that we will see that there is a consent based culture that has been awakened as as a consequence, as the new article of 36, which which addresses and shows that the Member States are obliged to work for a culture based or a consent based culture. So I hope that when there is time for when it is time for the review that the Member States and the heads of states, namely have come further than they have. I must say that I am disappointed that some of those Member States actually are those who has ratified the Istanbul Convention. It is above and beyond my understanding, where they said it is still a milestone and it is an historical day today. It is the first directive of its kind and it is a directive that the women and girls all across the Eu...

SOUNDBITE (English), Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES), Chair of LIBE Good evening. And thank you for the attendance. Good news, good news for women's rights. Good news for rights in all all across the European Union and good news for the European Parliament's lawmaking body, because that's what we have achieved. This mandate of the European Parliament got started with a specific, explicit commitment investing President Ursula von der Leyen. Under the condition that we would bring about a legislation that did not previously exist, a legislation meant to protect women against violence against women. That is the directive combating violence against women and domestic violence. And we have achieved.

SOUNDBITE (English), Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES), Chair of LIBE 'I can only congratulate the negotiating teams that have worked so hard. First, hand by hand, two committees of this house from committee, women's rights and the committee liberties, Fundamental rights, justice and Home Affairs. And we have put in place a legislation which is absolutely significant, a major step forward by making it a specific criminal offence, not only violence against women all across the European Union, but also cyber violence, cyber stalking, cyber harassment, which also devotes specific closes for training of judges, prosecutors and police force. When it comes to law enforcement, it takes a lot of training. It takes a lot of specific special training by those who are in charge of enforcing the new law, which is to be in place and protecting the victims, including the children, which are much too often victims of violence inflicted upon women, violence against women and domestic violence. So it's a major step forward. Absolutely. And I can only again congratulate that the negotiating teams have worked hand-in-hand, first in the first place to come with a strong European Parliament mandate and t...

SOUNDBITE (English), Juan Fernando LÓPEZ AGUILAR (S&D, ES), Chair of LIBE Just today, the final deal has been struck and we can only expect that it would be a very good message after the ratification that this European Parliament endorsed May 20, 23 of the Istanbul Convention. That was also a major achievement. And this is a follow up of that major achievement putting in place this legislation, which is absolutely essential to express our commitment to to the to the to the goal and values. Thank you.

SOUNDBITE (English), Robert BIEDROŃ (S&D, PL), Chair of FEMM Good evening. I start with thanking all these wonderful women in this case who changed the Europe's history and made this legislation so long awaited a reality. From today on. Thanks to them, millions of women will be better protected in our continent. This is the change that many generation have no chance to witness, and this will become a reality. European Union, from today on, has the one of the best legislations in the world to protect girls and women. And this is a great success. Is it a perfect solution? We all have a feeling and we all said it, that it's not a perfect solution, but is it an improvement, an important step forward. We all see and we all feel. Yes, it is. Yes. This will ensure that millions of girls and women will be better protected in Europe.

SOUNDBITE (English), Robert BIEDROŃ (S&D, PL), Chair of FEMM 'We have Istanbul Convention. But you must remember, and this is also important, that the Istanbul convention was not ratified, but many member states still there are member states which did not ratify this important document of Council of Europe. That's why this directive was very much needed and we could not allow that this directive will be watered down, that these negotiations will end up with nothing. We witness it in this House, watering down the the works on the directives, women on boards, for example. We had to wait for this legislation since we started ten years anti-discrimination directive from 2008. We still did not finish works on this directive. With this we had to conclude with this. We had to make the progress.

SOUNDBITE (English), Robert BIEDROŃ (S&amp;D, PL), Chair of FEMM  And I am very proud and I want to thank all of the colleagues working on that, that I had the opportunity to witness this important step to protect every girl and every women on this continent. In three weeks, we will be travelling to New York for another CSW conference, the biggest gathering in the world of people fighting against discrimination of women. And we will bring the best possible news from European Union, the best possible solution for all of them. So thank you very much for all your work. And let's already think about revision of this directive, which is very much needed. Thank you very much.

Q&A, Question about the different attitudes of members states regarding the definition of consent.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frances FITZGERALD (EPP, IE), Rapporteur, -

SOUNDBITE (English), Evin INCIR (S&amp;D, SE), Rapporteur, -

Q&amp;A, Question about whether the opposition was due to anti-EU attitudes or the matter itself.

Q&A, Question about where the definition of the consent is mentioned in the legislation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Juan Fernando L&Oacute;PEZ AGUILAR (S&amp;D, ES), Chair of LIBE, -