The European Union's Policy on the Equality of Women

Abstract

As the European Union (EU) moves toward greater market integration, its progress toward women's equality has been a disappointment to many European women and feminists, although in forty years, actions of the European Community (EC) had led to some favorable developments in the member states with regard to women's rights as workers and women's political representation. The 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam, which has yet to be ratified by governments of the member states, does not contain the great institutional reforms for which EU citizens, both female and male, were waiting. It has not helped forward the construction of European citizenship, nor indeed has it produced any real solution to the enduring democratic deficit and the limited power of the European Parliament. It continues a policy of extreme gradualness in building European citizenship and democracy. The Amsterdam Treaty still fails to include a basic common standard of fundamental social rights guaranteed to EU citizens. In fact, the social rights recognized in the European Social Charter of 1961 and the 1989 Community Charter of the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers only figure in the Amsterdam treaty as general principles that are not legally binding. However, the most important innovation is the integration of the Social Policy Agreement into the treaty that broadens the EC's competence and the powers of the European Parliament in the area of social policy. This may foreshadow a positive new phase in social policy. Most pertinent for women, the Amsterdam Treaty also contains a new article, number thirteen, that empowers the Council of Ministers, acting unanimously, to take appropriate action to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age, or sexual orientation. This