Franziska Katharina Brantner, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – (DE) Madam President, as women, we have been campaigning for equal pay for equal work since the Treaties of Rome were signed in 1957. The wording was changed in the Treaty of Amsterdam of 1999 to ‘of equal value’, in other words the same pay for work of equal value. A very good report was presented to this House in 2008, calling on the Commission to present new legislative proposals that would finally reduce the wage gap. Nothing has happened between then and 2012, except for a number of glossy brochures from the Commission, while the wage gap still remains 17 % on average, with 21 % in Germany, a trend that is rising in some countries. I find it unacceptable for the Commission to sit back and say: we are going to publish a few more glossy brochures and launch yet another campaign. We have seen over the last 50 years that this does not work. We do not need more glossy brochures, but rather further measures, including legal measures.

There are many reasons for the wage gap. Many of these cannot be remedied at European level. Some, however, can be influenced on a Europe-wide basis and it is these that we should be pushing in order to reduce the difference in the various Member States.

The first point is transparency. However, this does not mean transparency in the sense of glossy brochures, but rather transparency in the sense of the spread of wages within businesses. Models do exist for this. In Switzerland, anonymised data in which no names are mentioned show the spread of wages within enterprises. Any business in Switzerland that fails to disclose this information will find itself excluded from bidding for public contracts. Here we have an example where it is made clear how transparency can lead to less wage inequality. We should apply this right to transparency to the whole of Europe.

My second point concerns the issue of sanctions. In various EU Member States it is still the case that the penalties a company has to pay when sued by a woman are less than its previous savings. That is absolutely the wrong incentive. What we need to tell companies is that if they are guilty of discrimination, they will find themselves having to pay a hefty fine.

One final point: the implementation of the equal value issue. We need much better guidance and regulations if this law is to become a reality.

I hope that the Commission will not respond with just another monologue. By the way, I think it is a shame that Ms Reding is not present this morning. We do not just want a quota that will help high-flying women; we should also aim to assist all those women, who are in the majority, who suffer from unequal pay.