Text tabled : A7-0246/2012

  Marie-Thérèse Sanchez-Schmid (PPE), in writing. – (FR) In all, 83% of the female workforce is employed in the service sector. It is therefore essential to focus once again on women’s working conditions in this sector. We can never overemphasise the importance of ensuring that women are fully integrated into the labour market, combating the discrimination they suffer. In fact, women hold most of the precarious jobs and they are under-represented in senior official and decision-making positions. The first measure has to concentrate on wages. How can we justify the fact that women today still earn 16% less than men? We must ensure that the principle of equal pay for men and women for equal work is applied urgently. This discrimination is evident everywhere, even in the political sphere. If the European Union does not give women the opportunity to make the most of their skills, it will be betraying its values and paving the way for the obscurantism that is unfortunately rife in other parts of the world. I therefore voted for this report, which calls on the European institutions and the Member States to put an end to the glass ceiling that women have to face in their careers and to adopt measures to make it easier to reconcile work and family life.