Verbatim report of proceedings

Thursday, 30 March 2023 - Brussels

Strengthening the application of the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value between men and women (debate)

  Samira Rafaela, rapporteur. – Mr President, good morning, dear colleagues, good morning, Commissioner. Today we will make history. I am incredibly proud to stand in this House and to say to all women in Europe, ‘We are here for you’. In fact, we can say this to all workers in Europe.

This directive says you deserve to be treated equally and you deserve to be paid fairly, regardless of your gender, your background or your physical characteristics. With this directive, we have secured the right to information in Europe for all our citizens, and we will finally have the binding legislation we need to tackle pay discrimination in all our Member States.

If we had left it up to the markets, the gender pay gap would only correct itself by 2086. How could we justify this to women? How could we explain this to ourselves? We cannot.

And for far too long the economy has been organised with men in mind. Women were not the norm and you can see this in the representation of women in leadership positions, in the pay gap, in the pension gap. There is a structural problem here and we can’t just smash the glass ceiling. We need to rebuild the entire house. And today we are doing exactly that.

Deze wet inzake loontransparantie geeft alle vrouwen in Europa de handvatten om te achterhalen of zij gelijk worden betaald. Je hoeft voortaan niet per ongeluk te horen dat je mannelijke collega in dezelfde functie met hetzelfde profiel toch meer betaald krijgt. Je hoeft dit helemaal niet meer te accepteren.

We maken met deze wet een juridisch kader om de genderloonkloof tegen te gaan met stevige middelen waarmee we een cultuuromslag gaan realiseren. We werken toe naar echte gelijkwaardigheid op de werkvloer. Bedrijven die de regels aan hun laars lappen en vrouwen ongelijk betalen, komen er niet meer mee weg. En als de zaak bij de rechter komt, dan moet het bedrijf zelf maar bewijzen dat er geen sprake is geweest van loondiscriminatie.

Ik ben zo ongelofelijk trots op deze inclusieve en moderne Europese wetgeving. Voor het eerst noemen wij expliciet non-binaire mensen in de wetgeving. Voor het eerst erkennen wij intersectionele discriminatie en mag de rechtspraak dit als verzwarende factor meewegen bij zaken over loondiscriminatie.

Dit was voor mij een persoonlijk punt, want ik was weggelopen van de tafel als dit er niet in zou komen. Ik zit in de politiek om de norm te veranderen en die norm moest veranderd worden. Emancipatie is een werkwoord en dat is waarom we in de politiek zitten, om ervoor te zorgen dat emancipatie ook echt emancipatie is.

I know there are those in this very room that will vote against this directive. I know that they will hide behind hollow words such as ‘gender ideology’ or ‘administrative burden’.

The truth is that the women of Europe are watching and they will remember your vote. They will remember how you put corporate interests before their lives. They will remember how you did not show up for them today. Take that into account.

I am incredibly proud of my colleague Kira with whom I led these negotiations, thank you very much. Together, we show what modern, inclusive European legislation looks like. I am honoured to have done this with you, with our team, with dedicated advisors Claire, Julia, Myrthe, Asta, Laura and Hoba. And I thank our excellent negotiation team from all political groups, because today we will make history together. I am glad that we could constructively work together with the French Presidency, with the Czech Presidency, with the Commission. We have shown that if we want to reach true equality for all people living in Europe, we need to work together.