Text tabled : A7-0041/2012

  Estelle Grelier (S&D), in writing. – (FR) Every year, the European Commission publishes a report on the state of gender equality in Europe. Unfortunately, the same findings recur every year: gender stereotyping, ancestral taboos and an outdated view of the division of roles between women and men persist, preventing any improvement in the circumstances of women in the European Union. In 2011, the crisis helped make the situation worse, since, in affecting women more severely than men, it undermined their economic independence. Employment, access to positions of political and economic responsibility, freedom and sexual health: all issues that still require a continuous struggle in order to achieve genuine gender equality. This also has to be a daily struggle, in everyday life as well as in the European Parliament, where, at every opportunity, almost one third of Members regrettably call into question the issue of access to contraception and abortion.