David SASSOLI, EP President, and Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, open the event marking the International Women’s day during an inter-parliamentary meeting organised by the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM), in collaboration with the Directorate for Relations with National Parliaments. The event is hosted by Evelyn REGNER (S&D, AT), FEMM Chair. This transcription speech is the result of an automatic process. Check against delivery.

Brussels

statement

meeting

SASSOLI, David Maria (S&D, IT, S&D, IT)

International Women's Day (T)

gender balance (T)

REGNER, Evelyn (S&D, AT)

Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality

VON DER LEYEN, Ursula (DE, EC)

Coronavirus outbreak (T)

social life (T)

FEMM - International Women Day 2021 - We are strong: Women leading the fight against Covid-19: opening statements by David SASSOLI, EP President, Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the European Commisson, and Evelyn REGNER (S&D, AT), FEMM Chair

SOUNDBITE (Original), Evelyn REGNER (S&D, AT), FEMM Chair, An excellent good morning, dear president's Sassoli, dear president von der Leyen, President Sakelaropoulou, dear guests, dear speakers and their participants, I'm honoured to open the interparliamentary committee meeting on the occasion of International Women's Day 2021, entitled We Are Strong: Women Leading the Fight Against covid-19.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Evelyn REGNER (S&D, AT), FEMM Chair, We are glad to have with us online 56 members from 24 European Union national parliaments and Norway. We are very happy to welcome you all and to hear your contribution to this important debate. Firstly, I would like to make a few practical announcements. The event is organised in collaboration with the Directorate for Relations with National Parliaments. Interpretation is available in 18 European Union languages, namely French, German, Italian, Dutch, English, Danish, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Finnish, Swedish, Czech, Estonian, Lithuanian, Polish, Slovak, Romanian, Croatian.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Evelyn REGNER (S&D, AT), FEMM Chair, So the full bunch of our beautiful European languages. The meeting is web streamed during the opening of the event. Members of the European Parliament and of national parliaments will not be able to take the floor. They will have the opportunity to take the floor during the panel discussion. Please also note that time for intervention is limited. The clock will be displayed throughout the event in order to better monitor time.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Evelyn REGNER (S&D, AT), FEMM Chair, In order to ask for the floor, speakers need to press the right hand and once given the floor, they need to press the speak button. If your social media users please be aware that the hashtag for our event is hashtag IWD 2021 EP. So now forward to to our event today. The topic we're discussing is women empowerment in covid-19 times. For the last 12 months already our committee has used the opportunity, opportunity of several adopted reports, opinions to make an uncompromising diagnosis and multiply the proposals on all facets of gender issues related to the crisis.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Evelyn REGNER (S&D, AT), FEMM Chair, Gender and women's rights have dominated not just the clinical aspects of the covid-19 pandemic, but also our collective response and challenges faced. We have clearly seen that the crisis is a female crisis. Over 70 percent of workers with systemic relevance are women. In many EU countries, women are impacted significantly more by unemployment due to the pandemic, and women are the ones burdened by unpaid care work at home. In addition to tackling the virus in the immediate term, tackling domestic and gender based violence must be a top political priority.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Evelyn REGNER (S&D, AT), FEMM Chair, Across the European Union, against women rose by 30 percent. And then when one out of five women were already affected before, amongst others. We are therefore asking to add gender based violence to the list of Euro crimes under Article 83. The time has come to make this recovery a chance to advance women's rights as we seek to rebuild our economies and our societies in a different way.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Evelyn REGNER (S&D, AT), FEMM Chair, This change must seek to preserve and advance women's rights, including their economic independence, work life balance, labour market participation, equal pay and representation, as well as sexual and reproductive health and rights. A true covid-19 recovery can only be a success if we seek a greener, fairer and especially a more gender equal Europe.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Evelyn REGNER (S&D, AT), FEMM Chair, As such, key recovery funds must be gender mainstreamed, ensuring that women can fully benefit from them in terms of employment, but also entrepreneurship and more generally in the beginning, digital revolution. Together, we can support all the strong women in this pandemic and make sure that the future is female and therefore your contributions today will be carefully listened to and will feed into our ongoing work.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Evelyn REGNER (S&D, AT), FEMM Chair, Our event will now be opened by President Sassoli, President of the European Parliament, whom I have the honour to welcome in our meeting. You're very much welcome right now. The floor is yours.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, Thank you very much, Mrs. Regner, I'd like to also say good morning to the president of the commission von der Leyen to President Sakelaropoulou, to Commissioner Dalli, to all of the members of the European Parliament and to the members of the national parliaments. Thank you. For having invited me to give the opening speech for this meeting.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, We have International Women's Day coming up, and celebration of that shouldn't be purely rhetorical, as is often the case. If ever there was a time for rhetoric, we have to say that that time has passed because I think our conversation today is an important opportunity to discuss actions and specific responses and in particular, together with colleagues from national parliaments who are linked to us today.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, We are in the heart of a dramatic crisis, this crisis started a year ago, and this crisis immediately showed that women, young women, not only found themselves on the front line in the emergency health crisis, but they, too, immediately were the first victims of this crisis. Social victims of a crisis that has not yet come to an end.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, Simone de Beauvoir said that we should never forget that all we'll need is a political, economic or religious crisis for women's rights to be rolled back. These rights can never be considered fully acquired. We have to remain attentive throughout our whole lives and that quotation applies fully to the situation we're living through. Ladies and gentlemen, the covid-19 pandemic has not only consolidated injustices and inequalities that already existed in our societies.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, It's also likely to wipe out decades of achievements by women on progress in the labour market, progress in providing care and progress in the choices that they make about their relationships. Covid and its associated crisis means that all of this is now being questioned. Women's rights organisations, human rights defenders, NGOs, civil society, the academic world, all of them are telling us that the measures that have been adopted by governments to contain the spread of the virus have very often exacerbated the gender divide.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, When it comes to levels of unemployment, the burden of work in the home and also financial security and the personal independence of women in many of our countries, women were the first to lose their jobs or to be put on short-time work. The sectors most affected in the economy by the pandemic are those sectors where women are overrepresented: tourism, culture, leisure, catering.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, Most of the labour force providing essential services, looking after people is made up of women. Women represent 76 percent of people working in the health sector. 86 percent of care workers are women in the European Union. Because of the pandemic, many women have had to do part time work. Or stay home to look after their children, to look after their parents, people with disabilities.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, An identicate of poverty in Europe will show women, mothers and in particular, mothers with children. This pandemic has highlighted the perverse way in which our economic and social model works. In other words, the fact that poverty is actually considered to be the fault of the people suffering it, and the pandemic has also highlighted how essential care work is for society. And this is a public good.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, And it's also made clear how that care work often carried out by women, is actually the responsibility of all of us and should be considered, as I said, as a public good. During the lockdown, an even higher number of women were subject to violence, violence from their partners, men within their homes. In some countries, only those women that were the most affected, had access to health services. And reproductive services, some of them couldn't even get help when they needed it.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, We have to combat this pandemic and the economic and social impacts of the pandemic and the effects it will have on people, otherwise we will be making sure that women and girls and babies are not protected, and they need to be at the heart of our response. I think we need to adopt a general principle using the powers available to us already.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, This parliament, the European Parliament, the national parliaments all have powers available to them, and we need to use them to improve the material condition of women's lives and to ensure that as we move to the transition that we're working on, women's lives take a step forward, not backwards.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, Over the last centuries, progress has been made on women's rights. Now we have to achieve genuine equality of women and this has to be everybody's fight. And that is why it is time for an end to rhetoric and time for us to move on to what really happens. And women need to be a full part of all decision making on the recovery. In many European countries, women are running strategies and responses to the pandemic, and those responses are effective and inclusive.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, Women's leadership and involvement does lead to fairer, fuller budgets and more inclusive policies to combat this challenge. Nothing will be as it was before. We have said this on so many occasions. Don't let us repeat it again. Let's ensure that really this is the case that nothing is as it was before. And the pandemic does offer major opportunities, an opportunity to rethink what we want to achieve, i.e. building a fairer society.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, And we won't have a digital transition or a green transition if we don't have more gender equity. And that's why in the negotiations on the MFF, we insisted that gender parity and the gender dimension should be a central priority in the seven year budget of the European Union. That is a fight that we won together and now we need an in-depth impact assessment of gender parity and we also need careful monitoring of all the programmes to ensure that this is put in place.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, In the light of these criteria we also need to analyse the national recovery plans in the structured dialogue that we'll be having with the European Commission and that we've negotiated as a part of the recovery and resilience facility. We will ensure this is the case. This may all seem very abstract, but if equality is at the heart of the recovery, this will change the lives of women, very specifically in our countries, in our cities, in our workplaces, in our schools, in our universities, in research circles, in all of those areas where women make the difference between the old world and the new world.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, The world from which they are today excluded. But this is important, but may not be sufficient. We have to use equality as a starting point, and that means equal pay, equal pay for equal work. This is a principle enshrined in our treaties. But if you look at legislation across the member states, there is very differing approaches towards equal pay and this is no longer acceptable. President von der Leyen has committed herself to introducing binding measures in her mandate.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, And I'm very happy that yesterday the commission finally presented a proposal and now we are prepared to examine that proposal on pay transparency. Women's leadership is vital to introduce change. But how many women are there on the boards of companies, for example. The directive on the presence of women in executive and company boards has been blocked in council for too many years. This is an anachronism and we have to do away with it.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, And I am convinced that the European Commission will join the European Parliament in defending this directive. And I'm counting on the Portuguese presidency to ensure there will be progress. And then again, very specifically, it's our duty to ensure that violence against women becomes a crime, a crime that should be punished wherever it occurs anywhere in the European Union. We therefore need to commit ourselves to ensuring that all the member states of the European Union ratify the Istanbul convention.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, This isn't an abstract issue. It has an effect on what we are, what we want to be. And it's part of our identity card. If we really want to be a global player, a democratic reference point. But we also need to add gender violence to the list of European crimes in the EU so that these crimes do not remain unpunished in any member state. Fighting poverty, fighting child poverty. Now, that is another point that we need to be tackling urgently.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, We have asked for a childhood guarantee to ensure that every child who needs it has access to essential care, essential services. Again, a public good. And we are awaiting a proposal on this and we are ready to urgently examine it. Plus, we need to commit ourselves more to ensuring that the directive on reconciling work and family life is actually applied because this is a vital, binding tool to ensure that women can go back to work when they were thrown out of work at a particular point of their lives.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, And I would ask the commission to commit itself together with us to ensure that that directive is fully applied by all. As you know, the European Parliament has done its part in promoting full gender equality. But the efforts made are never enough. The efforts have been made and we've done that by applying a principle whereby for every appointment to a management post, the shortlist of candidates has to be gender balanced. This principle really should be applied by all the institutions, European institutions, national institutions, the bodies of the European Union that are at the service of European citizens.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, In March 2019, the European Parliament approved a very clear resolution on gender balance, in the nomination of candidates to posts in the economic and monetary sector. And then we called on the governments of the member states, the council, the Eurogroup, the commission, to actively work to ensure that they too had gender balance when they drew up short lists in future. We can't accept purely male shortlists for high level posts.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, Ladies and gentlemen, this dramatic crisis has provided us with a huge opportunity to ensure that the European Union becomes a different place different from the past. To ensure that this extraordinary political adventure becomes a fairer place for all. We have a lot of tools available to us, many resources available to us. We have adopted a lot of proposals with a very broad majority. A lot of initiatives. And all of that obviously is available to everybody to use as a basis for progress.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, Women, girls, children have to be and have to feel that they are part of the owners, not only of their lives, but that they're a full part of our lives, and particularly at a time when we're trying to get involved in such a difficult recovery, a recovery of our economy, but also of our society. I do believe that really this is the keynote of events like today, we need to have pragmatism, but also idealism. And as we build an area in Europe that's different from the past, but also a great deal better than what we have seen up until now. Thank you.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission, Thank you very much, Evelyn Regner. Presidents and honourable members, it is an honour to be with you today in the company of so many amazing women. And allow me to begin by mentioning three women who are not with us today, Dr Özlem Türeci, professor Sarah Gilbert, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett. Some of you may have never heard their names before, but we owe them a lot.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission, They are three scientists from Germany, the UK and the US. And these three extraordinary women lead the teams that developed the first three vaccines against coronavirus BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca. And I'm sure that they, like many of us, have fought against all sorts of stereotypes. But this is how women respond to stereotypes by going their way, showing leadership and excelling in their field. And today, the whole world can see that we are all better off when women get the opportunities they deserve.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission, Of course, women are made for science. Of course, women are fit to lead. Of course, career and motherhood can go together. It is obvious. But unfortunately, it still needs to be said. This year's International Women's Day is for women like these three scientists, this Women's Day is for women on the front line and for women in the back office.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission, It's for the health workers who have been our guardian angels, and it is for our sales assistants who have kept our supermarkets open, and indeed, let us never forget that almost 80 percent of them are women. Women's Day is also for all the mothers who have taken care of their children during the lockdowns while also working from home. But this Women's Day is also for the women who lost their job during the crisis.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission, And Women's Day is for those who no longer want to settle for discriminations, insecurity and unfairness. As a female leader, I would like 2021 to bring good news to all of them, to all European women, and this is what we are working on, putting women at the centre of all our policies. And let me start with the basics. Later this year, we will propose new legislation to fight violence against women.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission, This has become even more urgent because of the lockdowns. Living free from fear and violence is a basic human right. And we must ensure adequate protection for all women in all European countries, online and offline and especially at home. Second, women must be at the centre of the recovery. This is a clear requirement for all national recovery plans.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission, Next generation EU will find good jobs for women and men alike, it will invest in quality education for girls and women, including scientific education. Next generation EU will be for all Europeans, women and men. Third, today, indeed, we are presenting our new action plan to implement the European pillar of social rights. We've set ambitious targets on jobs, skills and poverty reduction. These are clear and measurable goals to drive our work.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission, And let me take one of them. By 2030, at least 78 percent of European adults should be employed. And this can only be achieved by having more women in the labour market. But to do this. We need to make progress on work life balance, ensuring parental leave for mothers and fathers, investing in childcare and good schools, and indeed creating a child guarantee so that. All parents from all social backgrounds can send their kids to child care and school.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission, And this is what empowerment means. Freedom to be a mother and to have a career for all women. And this adds up to the fourth point today, we are also proposing a directive for pay transparency. It builds on a very simple idea. Equal work deserves equal pay. And for equal pay, you need transparency. Women must know whether their employers treat them fairly and when this is not the case, they must have the power to fight back and get what they deserve.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission, And finally, women should always be able to reach for the top, including in private companies. I fought for this when I was a minister in Germany, and I won't stop pushing for gender quotas on boards until we get a fair system for all European countries. We simply cannot exclude half of our talents from leadership positions. Having women in leadership position should become the norm. Not the exception.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission, And slowly but steadily, Europe is changing. Five EU governments are now led by women. For the first time, an EU country, Estonia, is led by two women as president and prime minister and you, president Sakelaropoulou, you are the first woman to be elected as Greek president. For the first time in our history, not only the European Commission is led by a woman, but we have also achieved gender balance in the College of commissioners.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission, As you know, this is something I promised on my nomination, I asked every European country to present a man and a woman as candidates for each post. It was not always easy, but we made it. And it shows that everything can change with tireless perseverance. All of this matters. It matters on the quality of our decision making and it matters to our daughters.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission, It tells them that they can reach for the top, it tells them that hard work pays off. That they will be judged on their ideas, their dedication and their talent, not for their chromosomes. Agenda balanced Europe is a better Europe, not just for women, but for all of us. And in this spirit, long live Europe and Happy Women's Day.