European Union

On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted three resolutions on the human rights situation in Kenya, the United Arab Emirates and Cuba.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Human Rights

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

With only ten days to go, the German election race is expectedly picking up pace. But just as things are getting heated and — for German standards — dirty, much of the election action might already have been completed.

As Hungarian opposition parties are preparing to elect a single challenger to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Budapest's green mayor, one of the prime ministerial hopefuls, is holding a conference on sustainable democracy together with an exiled liberal university and opposition think tank.

The European Parliament has given its green light to a controversial new antimicrobials regulation, dismissing a motion calling for tighter restrictions on antibiotics use in animals and allowing the Commission to move forward on its plans to tackle anti-microbial resistance.

French publishers are close to launching a new body to collectively negotiate with online platforms, while the dispute with Google raises fundamental questions on how to monetise online content.

The European Union outlined on Thursday (16 September) a new strategy for raising its presence in the Indo-Pacific and counter China's increasing influence in the region, which has become the latest arena of the international geopolitical race.

Investment in green energy and new promises on vaccine supply were the only offers to Africa made by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen this week, as the EU’s plans to boost relations with its southern neighbour continent continue to sit on the back burner.

For now, vaccines are capable of dealing with SARS-CoV-2 virus variants circulating in the world. But as new variants potentially emerge vaccines might need to be adapted to fight the new strains.

EU lawmakers on Wednesday (15 September) adopted by a large majority the proposal to extend the mandate of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

First preliminary results of EDA’s Technology Foresight Exercise 2021 are now available in our website: details of the innovative methodology applied, the so-called ‘Futures Narratives’ and some key trends and developments likely to occur in the future. In the meantime, the final analysis of the exercise findings is still underway with the objective to be completed by the end of this year. 

The methodology applied and activities developed throughout 2021 were designed to support the central objective of EDA’s Technology Foresight Exercise: the identification of new technologies, weak signals and innovative trends to support the R&T and capability planning processes and inform future defence policies and programmes of the EU and its Member States. To achieve that, the exercise looked up to 20 years into the future, to provide a strategic vision of the possible impact those new technologies will have on defence in 2040 and beyond.

From Future Narratives to Divergent Thinking to Convergent Thinking 

The exercise stretched over 2021, with successive sessions that brought together different experts, know-how and foresight creativity. Thanks to the wide variety of ideas provided by a multidisciplinary group of foresight experts, so-called ‘Futures Tellers’, multiple possible futures were described in the Futures Narratives. Initially created as food-for-thought to spark the initial discussions among the participating experts, the narratives were meant to widen our vision and imagination about what could be possible towards 2040+, and also what kind of challenges this would entail. Descriptions of the Futures Narratives are now available on EDA’s dedicated website on the Technology Foresight activities.

Based on these narratives, other experts then engaged into a ‘Divergent Thinking’ process with the aim of narrowing down what the afore-mentioned narratives could potentially mean for security and defence in the future.  As a result, a set of 14 key challenges and developments has been identified, providing a general and high-level a vision of the future in 2040. A summary of the Divergent Thinking results are also available on the exercise website.

Final analysis still ongoing

The security and defence-related trends identified in the Divergent Thinking process are currently being analysed and converged into clusters (‘Convergent Thinking’ process) with the aim to deduct from them hints about potential disruptive technologies and innovations that will be needed in the future to cope with those developments. A report about the final outcome of the whole foresight exercise is due to be published before the end of this year. 

Next steps

The exercise findings will eventually:  

• provide a high-level, long-term vision on multiple possible futures with defence relevance, with a special focus of the impact of emerging disruptive technologies;
• inform the 2022 review of the EU’s Capability Development Plan (CDP), in particular the CDP’s Strand B (long term);
• produce an input for future updates of the other EDA prioritisation tools such as the Overarching Strategic Research Agenda (OSRA) or the Key Strategic Activities (KSAs), as well as the preparative work for the EU’s Strategic Compass.

Methodology

The exercise was based on a new EDA technology foresight methodology which combines different existing methods and processes, along with best practices and lessons learned from the wider EDA community of foresight practitioners. To facilitate outside-the-box thinking, the methodology foresaw different activities, which were taken place along 2021, involving experts from different international organisations, Ministries of Defence, as, as well as from non-governmental bodies, academia, industry, and civil society. 

 

 

Putin's Russia is a consistent source of tension among EU countries, but a certain degree of engagement with this country could deliver tangible benefits for the EU on increasingly urgent issues such as climate change, the Arctic, and cybersecurity, writes Nick Lokker.

Written by Marie Lecerf.

As things stand, the gender pay gap persists globally and in the European Union, and progress in reducing it is slow. The coronavirus pandemic is a further brake on gender equality. To accelerate the realisation of the principle of ‘Equal pay for work of equal value’, the United Nations marked the first International Day for Equal Pay on 18 September 2020. This year, for its second edition, the debate will focus on ensuring that equal pay remains at the centre of the response to the pandemic and recognition of women’s major contribution to economic recovery.

A persisting gender pay gap The gender pay gap by Member State. Source: Eurostat, Gender pay gap statistics.

The ‘gender pay gap’ is a measurable indicator of inequality between women and men. It generally refers to the average difference between the remuneration of employed women and male workers.

Although the gender pay gap is measured by different methods and indicators, data clearly show that women around the world still earn less when compared to men. According to the Global Wage Report 2018/2019 – What lies behind gender pay gaps, produced by the International Labour Organization (ILO), on average, women earn around 20 % less than men. Despite the increase in women’s educational attainment and participation in the labour market over the years, the gender pay gap remains a persistent and multi-dimensional issue in all countries and across all economic sectors. For women with children, women of colour, migrant women, and women with disabilities, the discrepancy is even larger. In 2019, women’s gross hourly earnings were on average 14.1 % below those of men in the European Union (Eurostat, EU-27). Across Member States, the gender pay gap varied widely, ranging from 1.3 % in Luxembourg to 21.7 % in Estonia.

The coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately affected women in the economic sphere. It is likely to have long-term adverse effects on gender equality. Research already suggests that the gender pay gap will widen because of the pandemic. 

International Equal Pay Day The United Nations’ commitment

Mainstreaming the gender perspective is key to the implementation of the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Since 2015, the ‘Equal pay for work of equal value’ principle has been recognised as one of the priority areas of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs), as mentioned in target 8.5: ‘By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value’.

In 2017, under the leadership of the ILO, the UN entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women (UN Women) and the Gender Initiative of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and together with governments, labour organisations (e.g. ITUC), employers’ organisations (e.g. IOE) and other dedicated agencies, the Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC) was launched for the effective and swift achievement of the principle.

On 15 November 2019, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming 18 September as International Equal Pay Day. The resolution was introduced by the Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC) with the support of Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Panama, South Africa and Switzerland. The day is intended to promote further action towards the achievement of equal pay for work of equal value.

The first International Equal Pay Day – 18 September 2020

On 18 September 2020, the first International Equal Pay Day, international leaders committed to taking affirmative action to narrow the gender pay gap. EPIC called on participants to put pay equity at the heart of Covid-19 recovery efforts by introducing integrated policy responses aimed at mitigating job and income losses resulting from the pandemic and ensuring that women do not end up disproportionately shouldering these job losses and reductions in incomes.

The 2021 Equal Pay Day

This year’s celebration will focus on the efforts of key labour market actors to ensure that equal pay remains central to pandemic responses worldwide and to fully recognise the contributions of women to coronavirus pandemic economic recovery. The event aims to strengthen commitments to closing the gender pay gap across regions and sectors.

European Union initiatives

Equal pay for equal work is one of the EU’s founding principles, enshrined in Article 157 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. However, the implementation and enforcement of this principle remain a challenge. Since then, there have been initiatives to address the gender pay gap both at EU and Member State levels. Although some reduction of the gender pay gap has been recorded in most EU Member States, the challenge persists.

In her political guidelines, the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, announced that she would introduce a proposal on binding pay transparency measures in order to address the gender pay gap and ensure application of the principle of equal pay for equal work. The Commission’s legislative proposal was adopted on 4 March 2021. It is one of the key priorities in the EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025. The proposed directive to strengthen the application of the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value between men and women through pay transparency and enforcement mechanisms would focus on two aspects of equal pay: measures to ensure pay transparency and better access to justice for victims of pay discrimination.

European Parliament position

Parliament has been calling for stronger measures on pay transparency and equal pay for a number of years. In its resolution of 8 October 2015 on ‘Equal opportunities and equal treatment of men and women in matters of employment and occupation’, Parliament asked the Commission to draw up a legislative proposal on equal pay, incorporating measures on strengthening pay transparency, together with effective means of enforcement, such as mandatory pay audits for large companies. Parliament’s resolution of 30 January 2020 on the ‘Gender pay gap‘ urged the Commission to ensure that the forthcoming pay transparency legislation applies to both the public and private sectors, promotes the role of the social partners and collective bargaining, and includes strong enforcement policies for those failing to comply. Parliament also asked for the proposal to incorporate a number of concrete measures.

Parliament’s resolution of 21 January 2021 on the new ‘EU Gender Equality Strategy’ stresses that binding measures are necessary to close the gender pay gap.

Read this ‘at a glance’ on ‘International Equal Pay Day‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Parliament calls for online and offline gender-based violence to be treated as a “particularly serious crime with a cross-border dimension”.
Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Parliament calls for online and offline gender-based violence to be treated as a “particularly serious crime with a cross-border dimension”.
Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has delivered her second annual State of the Union address, preparing the public for a new era of intensified international competition and promoting among other things a European defence union. For some observers the speech shone with optimism. Others lament that ultimately the EU Commission's hands are always tied.