If they can do it why can’t we?
Monthly Archives: September 2008
europarlTV
Back in 2006 I wrote to the Secretary General of the European Parliament to suggest that our meetings in Parliament should be podcast via the web. I thought this would be an excellent way to demystify what goes on in the Parliament. It would also allow citizens and lobbyists to follow meetings in more detail and would ensure more transparency over what goes on here.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4890928.stm
I’m delighted then that some three years later the Parliament has introduced a similar system by streaming the audio and video from meetings over the web.
I’ve just come back from the launch of europarlTV. EuroparlTV is split into four sections, each for different audiences.
One part is for those with a special interest in politics, including lobbyists and academics. There’s another section for school-age children. There’s a section with background material and finally a feature to stream meetings live.
You can see europarlTV yourself by visiting http://www.europarltv.europa.eu/
Filed under Online media, video
FEDERATION OF INTERNATIONAL ACTORS
Yesterday I spoke to the Federation of International Actors on how we can work at European level for action in getting equal opportunities in the performing arts.
They were an interesting group of actors from a number of countries. The meeting was held in the Drill Hall, a theatre and local centre in Chenies Street, WC1, which has been the location for one of the polling stations in my Ward. Small world.
I spoke to the FIA about recent reports in the European Parliament which might interest them. Two in particular could directly affect equality and the way of life of many members of the FIA.
Firstly, earlier this month Parliament passed a report on gender stereotyping called “How marketing and advertising affect equality between men and women”. You may have read about this in the Eurosceptic press as “Brussels to ban housewives on television”. Adverts are generally short and have little time to get their message across, and so MEPs wanted to ensure that advertisers did not play up to, or reinforce stereotypes as a way of selling products.
As often happens with EU reports on gender issues, the report was deliberately misunderstood by certain quarters of the media. The report was not about preventing adverts which are “discriminatory or harmful” to women, but about ensuring that advertising does not lead to stereotyping or typecasting because of lax or lazy editorial standards. Improving how we portray men and women, not just in adverts but in the media at large could go some way to improving the employment conditions for performing artists.
There was also a bill passed in June 2007 concerning the social status of Artists. Employment conditions for artists contribute greatly to problems in gender representation. As in other professions poor social and employment protection affect women more then men. The very nature of the employment contracts in the profession disadvantages women.
The report made a number of suggestions about improving sickness insurance, unemployment protection and pension provision for artists. These measures would help to ensure an employment landscape that was more able to accommodate both men and women equally. There were also suggestions that the Commission launch a pilot project of a European electronic social security card especially for European artists. This would help artists working across national borders to receive social security that they were entitled to. The report also highlighted problems with cross-border employment and the difficulties obtaining visas and work permits. The report stressed the need to take into account the atypical nature of artists working methods. Poor social protection disadvantages women, particularly those with young children. It makes it harder for them to balance work and family life.
Finally there is a report coming up on the “Equal treatment and access for men and women in the performing arts”. My colleague, French Liberal MEP Claire Gibault will be drafting this report, and it is likely to be dealt with at the end of this year or at the start of next.
But like on other reports, there are a number of MEPs who don’t see the importance of these issues. They prefer to get cheap anti-European press rather than address the issues that concern people. For that reason it’s important for organisations like Equity and the FIA to lobby MEPs to make sure that they understand the importance of these issues and make that these reports are passed.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN’S ORGANISATIONS
I was very pleased to be asked to speak to the National Alliance of Women’s Organisations yesterday. I was a member of NAWO during my time as Chief Executive of Gingerbread so it was good to go back.
One of my themes was “What has the EU ever done for Women?” Well quite a lot actually! For example if we look at the accession countries, especially Turkey, we can see that they have moved a long way towards gender equality. This is because these countries want to be part of the EU and so have been forced by our assessment criteria for entry to make these necessary changes.
There has been much work done on other legislation – environment and climate change. These are important issues in today’s world and arguably these are of more interest to women.
We can also learn a lot from what other member states are implementing in their countries, for example Sweden is particularly progressive in terms of parental leave and women’s rights. We can and should look at what other Member States are doing and question what can work here.
I also talked about the European Parliament itself. The EP is the only directly elected multinational political assembly in the world.
The EU has three main institutions: the Commission, the Council and the Parliament. The European Commission acts as the executive and proposes legislation, while the Council and Parliament work – as a bi-cameral legislator – to amend this legislation. The Parliament itself works through Committees where the drafting and amending is done, so therefore a lot of lobbying starts here.
Each of the UK political parties sit as part of larger pan-European political parties, so the Conservatives sit as part of the European People’s Party (EPP-ED), and Labour sit with the Party of European Socialists (PES). We don’t sit as a national block, but work together with like minded politicians from other countries.
Parliament itself is comprised of 30% women compared to just 20% in Westminster. Yet this doesn’t tell the whole story as some parties are much better represented than others. The Labour party has 8 women out of 19 MEPs, while the Liberal Democrats have 7 female MEPs out of a group of 11. They actually have more women then men! The Conservatives on the other hand have only one female MEP out of a group of 28, while UKIP actually have none.
Some countries are also better represented then others with the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Estonia and Sweden doing particularly well. Cyprus and Malta on the other hand have no female representation. It goes without saying that an equal balance of men and women is important for representative democracy, and it remains a cause for great concern that in the 21st century women still do not have a voice equal to that of their male counterparts.
Since NAWO were interested in lobbying, attempting to influence legislators in the formation of policy, I spent some time on this. Lobbying is definitely on the increase in the European Parliament. Many different groups seek to lobby their MEPs on many different causes. MEPs differ from their Westminster counterparts in that they regularly table amendments to reports which are adopted, so therefore they have much more influence on the legislation that they pass than backbench MPs do.
Lots of people lobby their MEPs, and MEPs actually like to hear the views of their constituents! All of this information is readily available on the European Parliament’s website at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/
WOMEN IN POWER
Over the summer I published a guide to female Members of the European Parliament. In this short video I introduce some of the findings from the guide.
Filed under Uncategorized
EUROPEAN ENERGY
I spent most of this morning in Industry Committee where MEPs were voting on several key pieces of environmental legislation. The reports were on extending the European emissions trading system (known as ETS); on carbon capture and storage (CCS); and on renewable energy.
As the Industry Committee is one of the big legislative committees, I normally get a huge amount of lobbying on most reports – but never more so than on environmental issues.
As the Industry Committee is one of the big legislative committees, I normally get a huge amount of lobbying on most reports – but never more so than on environmental issues.
The votes went well and there was pretty good agreement between many of the political groups. The committee supported keeping the 20% target for renewable energy by 2020 and also adopted strict sustainability criteria for the use of biofuels. The Socialists, Liberals and Greens also won a review clause on the use of renewables – this means an assessment of the impacts of renewable transport fuels on food and feed production before 2014.
The British Tories frequently talk about renegotiating the UK’s membership of the European Union, indeed many Tory MEPs think we should pull out of the EU altogether. If the Tories think we can tackle climate change without any cooperation at EU level, they must be living on another planet. Indeed, this is one of the reasons why the Swedish green party are becoming more pro-European.
These are big, heavyweight reports that will have a real impact on the energy sector and on helping Europe meet its targets towards cutting CO2 emissions. You just have to look at the number of lobbyists and NGOs packing the committee room to see that the decisions MEPs take have a real impact on environmental legislation. If there was nothing at stake, the lobbyists wouldn’t be interested.
These reports have now passed through the committee stage. There will soon be further negotiations between Parliament and the European Commission and Council before a final vote is taken at a full sitting of the Parliament. Don’t expect the lobbyists to go away any time soon!
HELEN MIRREN
Our theatrical “grande dame” is getting herself in the news a lot lately and on subjects she would be better off keeping quiet about.
It has just come to my notice that Dame Helen thinks prostitution should be legalised – that somehow this would help prostituted girls and women.
Helen “the Queen” Mirren really needs to learn some home truths. In those countries where prostitution has been legalised – for example Holland and Germany – illegal prostitution continues to flourish. Brothels were legalised in Melbourne, Australia more than 20 years ago. Since then the number of unlicensed brothels has increased more than three times.
There is no evidence that legalising prostitution keeps the women safe. There is, however, plenty that shows it results in an increase in demand for men buying sex. $11.3 billion was spent in Australia last year on prostitutes and strippers. The trade there is growing at the rate of eight percent a year.
The demand for buying sex in increasing in the UK. This in turn leads to an increase in trafficking women to meet the demand. I would hope that Dame Helen would condemn this vile trade whereby women and girls are forcibly coerced into prostitution. Ending the trafficking of women and legalising prostitution do not mix. The choice is either one or the other.
The only realistic way to end trafficking women is to reduce the demand for sexual services. There is only one way to do this – criminalise the act of buying sex so that punters think very hard about what they are doing.
SEX IN ADVERTS
It’s interesting just what gets the Daily Mail going. Last week the European Parliament passed a report designed to prevent stereotyping of men and women in adverts.
So far, so good you may think. I for one don’t particularly like seeing women in a state of undress for no particular reason or men always doing the DIY. Yes, the report does apply to images of men as well as women.
It’s also not legally binding. It’s an own-initiative report in European Parliament speak.
Yet the Daily Mail ran a piece attacking the EU and displayed a large picture of the Eva Herzigova Wonderbra advert which they claimed would be outlawed if the provisions in the report became law. There was also the usual Mail rant on Europe. You can’t help think that the main point of this was to print the famous picture of a scantily dressed super model and use the EP report as another vehicle to have a go at the European Union.
The Mail and others missed my very important amendment to the report:
” Notes with extreme concern the advertising of sexual services which reinforces stereotypes of women as objects, in publications, such as local newspapers, which are readily visible and available to children”
The amendment, tabled by myself, was agreed by the whole European Parliament – a step on the road to ending the advertising of brothels and sexual services in family publications.
Filed under 1
CHILD PORNOGRAPHY ON THE INTERNET
Child safety on the internet was discussed at both the Women’s Rights and the Culture Committees today. A report written by centre-right MEP Marie Panayotopoulos-Cassiotou from Greece was passed by the Women’s Committee.
The Culture Committee commented on this Report in what the EP calls an “Opinion” – a document also written by an MEP and then voted on by the Committee concerned. This child internet safety Opinion drafted by right wing Tory, Christopher Heaton-Harris, proved so good that I voted for all his recommendations! It’s not really peace breaking out but a good example of European consensus at its best.
The Culture Committee also discussed a Report on media literacy, shorthand for access to media, understanding and evaluating content and creating communications. Written by the Austrian Socialist Christa Prets who leads for the Socialist Group on the Culture Committee, this Report looks at range of modern communication tools – TV, film, video, radio, newspapers and magazines, computer games and the internet more generally.
One footnote to the Culture Committee meeting. UKIP member Tom Wise voted against every single report. UKIP’s “policies” seemingly come down to mindless opposition.
Committees meet all this week. The EP is very organised in the way it does its business, working on a monthly cycle. There are two weeks of Committee meetings, one for political groups and one week taken up by the plenary session.
By the way, congratulations to Andy Murray who has done amazingly well. Maybe we will soon have the first British male tennis player to win a grand slam since Fred Perry.
Filed under Uncategorized
