European Year of Equal Opportunities for All 2007
Our final agenda item is evidence on the outcomes of the 2007 European year of equal opportunities for all. I attended the year's closing conference in Lisbon. The event was worth while and reinforced the fact that equal opportunities are relevant throughout the whole European Community and Europe.
I therefore take much pleasure in welcoming Belinda Pyke, who is the European Commission's director of equality. She has kindly agreed to come over from Brussels and I welcome her back to Edinburgh, where she used to live. We look forward to hearing what she has to say. As well as updating the committee on the European year, Belinda will talk about other European Union work that is relevant to our remit. That is not surprising, given that equal opportunities legislation that we consider emanates from the EU. We have chosen a good time to speak to Belinda, because the Commission has recently proposed a new directive on non-discrimination outside the workplace.
I invite you to give a brief introduction.
Belinda Pyke (European Commission):
It is a great pleasure to be back in Edinburgh. I worked here in the late 1970s and voted for devolution at that time, so it is particularly nice to return to be present at the Scottish Parliament.
It might be useful if I set the European year of equal opportunities for all in its context and talk about recent developments—not only on the non-discrimination directive, but on proposals on maternity leave that were made last week. I will remind members of the basis for action in the treaty. The European Union can, of course, act only in areas in which a treaty allows it to do so. On equal pay, which the committee has been discussing, the basis for action goes back to the treaty of Rome, which enshrined the principle of equal pay for men and women. That was elaborated through case law and legislation to a broader concept of equal treatment for men and women in the workplace.
However, it took the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997 to advance competences. That treaty provided the basis for gender mainstreaming in all Community policies. It is important that it also gave us article 13 of the treaty of Rome, which gives the European Union the competence to propose legislation to combat discrimination on six grounds: race, sex, age, disability, religion or belief and sexual orientation. Not until the Amsterdam treaty was introduced could the European Union legislate against sex discrimination outside the labour market. That reminds us how recent such action is.
As members will see from the paper that the Parliament's Europe officer has provided, three directives have been adopted on the basis of article 13. The comprehensive race directive, which was adopted in 2000, covers discrimination on the grounds of race or ethnic origin at work and outside work—in access to goods and services, for example. Also in 2000, legislation was adopted on discrimination at the workplace and in access to employment on the grounds of religion, age, disability or sexual orientation. In 2004, we had the first legislation on sex discrimination outside the workplace, in respect of access to goods and services. Gender legislation has developed, too.
Policies have developed in parallel. We have a road map for gender equality from 2006 to 2010, in which one of our great battles, which the committee has considered, is on the gender pay gap. That remains stubbornly stuck at about 15 per cent. Many more women have entered the labour market in recent years, but the gender pay gap persists.
We have also developed disability policies at European Union level. They are now linked to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which all member states are preparing to ratify. The European Community will be a partner in that, because of our mixed competences.
Non-discrimination is the broader remit that we want to discuss today. In 2005, a policy framework on non-discrimination set out several actions, one of which was the European year of equal opportunities for all, which was to be the culmination of awareness-raising measures. Other measures included reviewing whether we needed to legislate further on non-discrimination, so the work started then. We also developed a series of studies and policies.
That brings us to what has been happening this year. I have provided the committee with a communication that we published on 2 July on the future shape of non-discrimination policy. In that communication, we set out our assessment of the current legislative framework and the basis for why we think further legislation is needed.
We also addressed a number of policy areas that we need to develop in dialogue at EU level, such as mainstreaming, positive action and data collection. It is fair to say that the UK is relatively well advanced in those areas; it is further advanced, in many cases, than other member states. Data collection—for example, asking people about their religion or their racial origin—is very sensitive in a lot of countries, so dialogue on that continues.
On 2 July the Commission adopted the communication that I mentioned as part of a package of social policy. We also decided to establish a standing expert group—a member-state committee—on non-discrimination policy, which will provide an opportunity to exchange experiences. We are now calling for member-state nominations, and we will meet for the first time in November.
We produced a working document, which is a review of policies and instruments in favour of inclusion of Roma, who are often called Gypsies or Travellers in this country. As an ethnic minority, they face the biggest discrimination in the EU. That is not confined to just a few countries—in all the surveys that we carry out, attitudes to Roma contrast starkly with attitudes to any other group, including any other racial group.
We also propose the non-discrimination directive, which extends protection against discrimination on the grounds of age, disability, sexual orientation and religion or belief outside the labour market. A number of countries, including the UK, already have rather extensive non-discrimination legislation, so if the legislation is approved, the necessary changes will be relatively minor.
I note that just before the European Commission made its announcement, the UK Government announced that it will introduce a new equality bill during the next parliamentary session. I gather that it intends to propose legislation in February, and that the bill will tackle age discrimination, which has been the big gap in the UK legislation. I stress that the legislation at EU level needs unanimity. Article 13 of the treaty of Rome requires all member states to agree to legislation, and that will remain the same if and when the Lisbon treaty comes into force.
Discussions within the Council working group have just started. The first discussions between ministers took place last week in Luxembourg at the Council meeting, which was public, so you can—if you want—spend a few hours watching a web-streamed broadcast of it. Some member states were more enthusiastic than others about the legislation and some states, such as Germany, voiced their well-known concerns that they have legislation that broadly covers the same scope and do not think the EU should legislate in the area.
The French presidency is keen to make progress on the directive, but it might not be approved for some time—we need unanimity. There will be a Czech presidency in the first half of next year, and a Swedish presidency in the second half. The European Parliament is just about to begin its own work. It has only consulted—it does not have codecision in that area. The European Parliament can give an opinion and the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs leads on the issue, although other committees are involved.
Even more recently, on Friday, the Commission adopted a package of measures on work-life balance reconciliation—or as some of the press have put it, "working mums". In the Commission's road map on gender equality, we identified reconciliation and equal economic independence for men and women as being one of the basic building blocks for achieving real equality and ensuring that women are able to participate fully in the labour market.
We have been consulting widely. Notably, we have consulted the social partners, who said that they are now ready to negotiate improvements in legislation on parental leave, which is based on an agreement between them. Last week, the Commission proposed a general communication setting reconciliation measures into the broader context of demographic renewal, competitiveness and employment.
We produced a report on child care because, at the European Council in Barcelona in 2002, the member states committed themselves to achieving certain targets in child care, notably that each member state would provide child care for one third of under-threes and 90 per cent of children between three and the age at which they go to school. Most have not achieved those targets. That includes the UK, although it is rather closer to the target than other member states.
We also produced a proposal to review, amend and improve the 1992 directive on minimum maternity leave. The minimum maternity leave at European Union level is 14 weeks—again, the UK is well in advance of that—and we propose to increase it to 18 weeks. We also propose that that should be without loss of earnings, although we recognise that that will be difficult for many member states. Therefore, in the proposed legislation, we acknowledge that member states may set a ceiling on the maternity allowance, provided that it is not below the current level.
We have also proposed legislation to amend a rather old directive on equal treatment of self-employed people and aiding spouses. We know that lack of access to social protection and, particularly, support during maternity leave are often barriers to women entering entrepreneurship. We are also aware that assisting spouses—usually women—who work with their partners in setting up businesses or running farms are invisible in social protection. In the end, they will fall on the state for support but if the partnership, business or marriage breaks up, they are vulnerable.
The two pieces of legislation that were proposed last week are subject to codecision and qualified majority voting, so we hope that they will be agreed during the remaining year of the European Parliament. As you know, we have elections next year.
I am sorry to have spoken for so long, but I hope that that gives you a proper picture. As I said, some things are very recent.
Thank you for that comprehensive overview. We have questions, some of which touch on matters that you have already explored. The 2007 European year of equal opportunities for all was about raising awareness of citizens' rights to equal treatment and a life free of discrimination. You summarised some of the main achievements, but would you like to add or highlight anything else for the committee? When I attended the closing ceremony, I was impressed with all the smaller things that were happening in each member state's efforts to raise awareness.
What was rather special about the year was that member states—for the first time, in many cases—developed non-discrimination strategies to address all six of the strands that article 13 covers. That was pretty ambitious, particularly for some of the newer member states, where religion or sexual orientation are still sensitive issues. In other countries, where attitudes to human rights have developed differently, they are less contentious. Therefore, the cross-ground approach was important. Of course, once we examine cross-ground discrimination, we address multiple discrimination. Gender is often one aspect of that.
The way in which civil society was involved with the public and private sectors helped to give the year its dynamism. That was particularly evident in Lisbon. To follow up the event in Lisbon, we now have an annual equality summit. It took place last Monday and Tuesday in Paris and was highly successful; the Swedish Government will host it next year. In that event, people from different member states' Governments, the private sector, trade unions and civil society come together to review progress on promoting diversity and tackling discrimination. We also hope that the new committee that we have established will provide some continuity in exchanging best practice. That is where we can add value to policy development.
Thank you. That was helpful.
You spoke about a new directive. Could you give us more detail on that? Which areas of activity outside employment will be covered by the new legislation? The Scottish and UK Governments are both concerned about possible implications for the education and health-care systems.
The directive specifies what it does not cover, which has created some concern among member states who wonder why we have done that. We felt that it was important to point out that we are not interfering with, for example, member states' traditions of having religious schools. The secular tradition is very important in schools in France, and that, too, can be maintained. The UK has concerns about the interface between education and disability and the rights of the country or Government to establish special types of education for people with special needs. That is perfectly permissible, as we make clear.
Education is covered by the race directive—we felt that it would not be correct to leave it out. For the moment, education is not covered by the sex discrimination directive. We might review that in 2010. We do not cover the content of education. People might have strong views about the nature of textbooks, for example, but that is not an issue for the European Union. People across the European Union will express their views, but that is not an area in which we would legislate.
Member states have asked that closer attention be paid to drafting in various areas, and the need for greater legal certainty in drafting came up at the Council last week. Sometimes, the more specific the drafting, the more uncertainty can grow. However, we hope that when we start discussions with the member states again next week we will be able to find out what the particular issues are at the lower levels.
Article 4 of the proposed new directive is on disability; it is the most detailed part. Particularly in the light of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, we need to go further. That UN convention defines "denial of reasonable accommodation" as discrimination. The concept of reasonable accommodation is fairly well known in European Union law. I forget the actual phrase that is used in the UK legislation, but a similar approach of reasonableness is taken.
The proposed directive goes into detail about disability, but it is not exclusively about disability.
No, it is not. It was necessary to go into more detail about disability. Age discrimination is perhaps different, but not to discriminate on the ground of sexual orientation means to stop doing something, whereas not to discriminate on disability grounds usually means actually doing something positive.
Age discrimination is the other rather specific area. There has been quite a long debate in the UK about that. Certain types of age limit are perfectly justifiable for safety reasons or health reasons; for example, we might want to say that children may not drink or do certain other things. That is left to the member states, however.
There has been a lot of debate in the UK and other countries about insurers and bankers using age as a proxy for setting prices or defining products. Life insurance clearly has an age element. That is sometimes a bit less evident with travel insurance and car insurance.
Your comprehensive responses have killed two of the questions that I had in mind, but that is not a problem—I am not short of questions, and I have a more general one. If a piece of legislation by a member state or a constituent part of a member state contravened either current European legislation against discrimination on religious grounds or the directive that we have been discussing, what action, if any, could be taken or what reprimand could be issued by the EU to address shortcomings in the legislative framework of that nation or member state?
The Commission can take a member state to the European Court of Justice, but that is at the end of the process. All the legislation in this area is relatively new. The member state sends its legislation to the Commission, which assesses whether it is in conformity with the directive that was agreed—in this case, unanimously—by the member states. Discussions become increasingly formal and can end up in the European Court of Justice, although usually there is great interest in ensuring that that does not happen. Often there are issues of interpretation; a member state may say that it interprets a provision slightly differently from the Commission. That is the case regardless of whether the legislation relates to religion, sexual orientation or other issues.
It is interesting to note that the legislation on discrimination in the workplace on the grounds of religion and sexual orientation that was adopted in 2000 includes a specific provision for Northern Ireland, which has been used as a basis for positive action in the Police Service of Northern Ireland. That caused some parties in Northern Ireland concern, but I understand that it has been successful in achieving a great deal more diversity in the police force, not only religious. I do not have direct information on the matter, but I understand that the scheme can be closed more quickly than was expected—it is time limited.
Given that I have lost two questions, I will ask a quick supplementary. What about a piece of nation-state legislation that effectively gives a separate organisation the right to discriminate by proxy?
The question is too oblique. Can you give me more of a clue?
Let us say that there is a piece of legislation on the statute book that allows a religious institution to discriminate in particular circumstances; I am thinking specifically of employment.
The 2000 directive includes a quite detailed provision on the possibility in certain cases of religious institutions requiring an employee to adhere to a certain religion. In other cases, employees can be required at least to respect the ethos of the religion. We have discussed the matter with another member state where there has been concern about interpretation of the directive. At a religious school, it is not unreasonable to expect the teachers of religion to be of the religion concerned; it is not obvious that the cleaner or gardener needs to be of the religion, but one would expect them to show a degree of respect for the ethos of the religion. The 2000 directive addresses that issue, because its relevance to religious schools, in particular, was recognised.
I have a very short question, because you have covered most of the issues that I wanted to raise. Although the new directive will have an impact, it seems that it will respect the traditions of individual countries. Should all the issues that the directive covers be left to individual states? Do some EU states seek an EU-wide approach?
I hope that I did not mislead. Certain issues will be left to the member states because they are not to do with us. Those issues include the organisation of schools and the content of education. However, as in the case of the race directive, member states have said that there should be common EU-wide rules, not least because the citizens of member states that have good legislation on these issues—as is the case in Scotland and the UK—should reasonably be able to expect that they will not face discrimination on those grounds if they go to another member state. That applies particularly in the access to goods and services—I am afraid that that is the sort of bureaucratic language that we use. In buying products or services, one should be able to expect that one will not face discrimination.
Also, businesses that work across borders should be able to understand what the common rules are. In a survey of businesses, we found that they felt that it would be an advantage to have a minimum set of standards so that they could know what the minimum rules are on discrimination on the grounds of age, religion or sexual orientation. Many member states have fairly extensive legislation on those issues, but it is not quite uniform. We want to have a common basis. In the UK, Ireland or Germany, not much adjustment will be needed, but in some other member states development will be required.
So it will be up to each individual state but the EU directive will ensure that the requirements on certain aspects apply in the round.
Yes.
I want to ask about the effectiveness of implementation of existing directives but, before doing so, I have another question.
In your introduction, you said that the new directive will not involve a major change for the UK because many of its requirements have already been implemented here. Will you say a bit more about that? Basically, will the provision on age discrimination be the only new requirement for the UK, or will the directive apply to other areas of discrimination—whether on the grounds of sexual orientation, disability or whatever—that legislation does not currently cover in the UK, such as the supply of goods and services?
I will not stick my neck out and match our directive against the UK legislation, but I can certainly say that the scope of the UK legislation and the grounds that it covers are almost as complete as what we propose. An interesting point is that, in implementing the two European Union directives that were introduced in 2000—the race directive covering discrimination within and outwith employment and the discrimination directive covering discrimination only in the context of employment—many member states went further and filled the gap. In many member states, the extensive coverage that applies under the race directive was also applied to other grounds for discrimination.
Sorry, can you repeat the other part of your question?
Age discrimination legislation will be introduced in the UK at almost the same time as the directive is adopted. In the UK, the contentious age discrimination issue is the provision that allows companies still to force people to stop working when they reach 65. Will that continue to be allowed under the EU directive?
One could say that that is already covered by the 2000 directive, as was shown in the Heyday case in the European Court of Justice—
So that will not change.
Discussion on whether that is discrimination is still on-going within the European Court of Justice. We have tackled the subject; the issue now is judges' interpretation of the extent to which the situation in the UK represents discrimination.
I understand that the UK legislation will not apply to persons under 18. That issue is also being considered in discussions in Brussels.
On disability, I think that the UK has some concerns about the language that is used in the directive, but I think that—apart from in the area of education—we are broadly on the same lines.
Quite properly, the UK will always want to look at the exact language that is used to see whether the provisions will be difficult to translate into domestic legislation. Although the new directive is unlikely to be adopted before the UK introduces its legislation, I hope that the fact that our proposal is now available will clarify the scope of the EU legislation. The scope of the directive may need to be lessened slightly to secure agreement among the 27 member states, but it is unlikely to increase. That should provide the UK with some certainty. Clearly, member states that have just completed a legislative process find it disruptive to discuss proposals that would force them to change that legislation.
To what extent have the existing directives succeeded in their aims—not just the workplace one, but the ones on the provision of goods and services and protection on race and gender grounds? Has it been difficult to implement and enforce those directives in any areas?
We have produced general reports on some of the issues that have arisen in relation to the race directive and, more recently, the employment directive, and we tried to describe that in our overall communication of 2 July. Broadly speaking, implementation is good. An important part of the directives, particularly the race directive, is the requirement for member states to set up bodies for the promotion of equal treatment, or what we call equality bodies. That was also strengthened in the sex discrimination directives.
In Great Britain, we have the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and there is a separate body in Northern Ireland. The advantage of having such bodies is that, hopefully, they prevent cases from having to go to court and raise not only individuals' awareness of how to deal with discrimination but employers' and service providers' awareness of how to avoid discriminatory behaviour. One question about our legislation is whether we measure success by the number of cases of discrimination or by the absence of them. We know that legislation is not enough and that awareness raising is also important. Certainly in relation to human rights, behaviour and the political climate have to change in order for the legislation to change, but that change then continues to develop the political climate.
The legislation protects people from discrimination on the ground of race. Particularly in Italy, but in other European countries as well, can the Roma people take cases of discrimination to the European court? If not, when will they be able to do that?
They do not need to go to the European Court of Justice. They can use the race directive to tackle discrimination where it occurs in member states. The Italian situation is particularly complex, and the justice and home affairs commissioner of the European Union, Vice President Barrot, is in close contact with the Italian authorities about the census and fingerprinting.
Two weeks ago in Brussels, we had the first major Europe-wide conference on the Roma. It was the most political—in the nicest sense of the word—conference that I have ever been to in Brussels. We had a lot of Roma people there, from different groups. They are a heterogeneous population. In some cases, they face extreme poverty, in new member states as well as old ones. We are working with the non-governmental organisations to help to empower the Roma to get more involved in local activity and, for example, to access structural funds. In June, the European Council was asked to consider, at the end of the French presidency, what future measures can be taken to support Roma inclusion.
We set out the feeling of the European Commission in our document in July. We believe that, by and large, the European Union has the policies and instruments to support Roma inclusion. We have the anti-discrimination legislation, the structural funds, the regional fund and the social fund, and we have social inclusion processes, but we need to ensure that they are used more effectively to support Roma inclusion.
At present, the European Commission is considering how we can develop that to a greater extent. In my area, for example, we are working with the national equality bodies to ensure that they all have lawyers who understand the extent to which they can use existing EU and national legislation to combat Roma discrimination. It is also important that Roma civil society and Roma NGOs are aware of the instruments. It is not enough to give people rights—they need to know how to use them.
That is interesting. The Equal Opportunities Committee conducted a major inquiry into discrimination against Gypsy Travellers several years ago, and it is an on-going issue for the committee's attention.
I have two short questions on implementation, but I will first return to what Malcolm Chisholm asked about. I am interested in access to goods and services. You referred to the UK publishing its legislation—is that the Equality Bill?
Yes.
One of the groups that are discriminated against is breastfeeding mothers and their children. In Scotland, because of my member's bill, which was enacted in 2005, there is legal protection against mothers' being told that they cannot breastfeed in certain places. That pertains to women being denied access to goods and services such as cafes and buses. In fact, discrimination on buses was what raised the issue in the first place—about eight years ago, a woman was put off a bus in Edinburgh for breastfeeding. I understand that there is some intention to include such protection in the Equality Bill; however, I am curious to know whether the existing European legislation covers that group against such discrimination.
That is an interesting question, which I will need to reflect on. If there is any relevant EU law, it will be the sex discrimination directive of 2004. That relates to gender and it might cover indirect discrimination.
If you could find out, that would be interesting. It became clear that because the sex discrimination legislation applied only to women, it might be difficult to pursue a case under it, as the situation could not be compared with the treatment of men. That is why I am interested in the directives on wider discrimination, particularly with regard to access to goods and services. There are some protections under employment law, with provisions built in about breastfeeding mothers. I would be interested in that, especially as it is proposed to include such protection in the Equality Bill, so that UK women and children are covered not just in Scotland.
I think that you said, in your opening statement, that the timescale for implementation of the proposed directive is a year—did I hear that correctly?
I do not know the timescale. We need the agreement of 27 member states. It could take a year, it could take longer or it could happen sooner.
Should the UK or the Scottish Government be doing anything specific to prepare for implementation of the directive? Is the Equality Bill something that the UK Government is doing in that context?
The UK Government is interested in the developments in Brussels and Luxembourg regarding the directive, as it will have an impact on the Equality Bill. I imagine that, by February, we will have a much clearer idea of where the points of disagreement are and what the shape of the directive is likely to be. The French presidency hopes to have made substantial progress on it by the end of the year. However, as I say, at the moment, some member states are adamantly opposed to any new legislation and, as long as one member state puts up its hand and says no, there is no legislation.
That concludes our questioning. Thank you for a fascinating insight into what is going on in the European Union and how it impinges on the work of the committee. We look forward to reading the response that you give to Elaine Smith on the specific issue that she asked about, which is worthy of consideration and may move us a little bit farther.
I thank everyone for their attendance.
Meeting closed at 13:09.