Promoting the most favourable gender equality laws in Europe

Recommendation 1949 (2010)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Text adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of the Assembly, on 12 November 2010 (see Doc. 12427, report of the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, rapporteur: Mrs Circene).

Thesaurus

1. Recalling its Resolution 1780 (2010) on promoting the most favourable gender equality laws in Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly notes that equality between women and men, which is a precondition for democracy, is far from being fully achieved in the member states and varies considerably from one country to another. Depending on where they live, the state of progress of women’s rights differs significantly.

2. The Assembly welcomes the recent stances in favour of equality between women and men taken by the Committee of Ministers (Declaration CM(2009)68 “Making gender equality a reality”, adopted at its 119th session in Madrid on 12 May 2009) and the ministers responsible for equality between women and men (Resolution MEG 7 (2010) 1 “Bridging the gap between de jure and de facto equality to achieve real gender equality” and Action Plan, adopted at the 7th ministerial conference in Baku on 25 May 2010). It encourages the Committee of Ministers to continue its efforts and to make equality between women and men a priority activity.

3. The Assembly invites the Committee of Ministers to:

3.1 instruct the relevant steering committees to identify the laws that are most favourable to women, in accordance with the Council of Europe’s standards;

3.2 ensure that the right to equality between women and men is interpreted in a uniform way by preparing an additional protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights on equality between women and men;

3.3 develop assistance and co-operation programmes, including parliamentary co-operation (subject to available financial resources) to promote the “bouquet of the most advanced legislation on equality between women and men” in all the Council of Europe member states, thereby encouraging them to adopt progressive legislation.