Marie-Line Reynaud, on behalf of the PSE Group. – (FR) Mr President, I should like sincerely to thank Mrs Kratsa for her commitment and her sense of cooperation. This own-initiative report is, in my view, one of the most important reports dealing with women’s rights that we have had to express an opinion on since the start of the Parliamentary term.

The situation of women migrants has been overlooked for too long by our governments, despite the fact that they are growing in number and that they now account for the majority of the people arriving on EU soil. They are the ones who forge the first links between their families and nationals in terms of society and integration. Indeed, this report offers many guidelines aimed at putting a stop to the two forms of discrimination - racial and sexual discrimination - that these women often suffer.

I am particularly delighted that a number of provisions have been included in this report that concern illegal women immigrants, because they represent a sub-category that is deprived of its rights and thus made all the more vulnerable. It is therefore vital that these women can benefit, in whichever Member State they are resident, from basic rights such as access to emergency health care, legal aid and schools for their children, as is the case in my country.

Finally, I am delighted that this report features another point to which I am particularly attached, namely the status of women who arrive on EU territory within the context of the family reunification process. These women often only exist in law through their husbands and are therefore placed in a situation of complete dependence. This report calls for them to be granted an independent and autonomous status as quickly as possible and, above all, for this status to be automatically preserved in the event of the couple separating.

I therefore hope that this report will be adopted by a large majority within our Parliament and that the ambitious proposals that it contains will not go unheeded.