T
his sentence is from a Commission that rushed to produce an empty, so-called Women’s Charter in March, and that negle
cted the Parliament when it came to negotiating the new gender equality strategy, which, I might add, is no more concrete than the Commission work programme here. We knew in March that Reding’s Charter was only a façade with no substance. We asked repeatedly for a strong legislative text,
but Reding did not want to hear a ...[+++]bout it. Why can we accept a Eu
rope that sanctions Member States when they are financially not in line with EU rules an
d agreements but we cannot accept a Europe that sanctions Member States that neglect gender equality and compose governments with few or no women ministers?