European Parliament votes in favour of closing the gender pay gap

The European Parliament voted in favour of the mandate for the Pay
Transparency Directive. This directive is a crucial tool in the fight
against the gender pay gap, currently at 13% EU-wide. The Parliament's vote
was brought on by members of the EPP and ECR who challenged the directive
last month. With today's vote, the Parliament has given its go ahead for
inter-institutional negotiations to start. The Greens/EFA Group applaud the
progress for women's rights taken today, and have long pushed for action to
be taken to close the gender pay gap.

*Kira Marie Peter-Hansen,* Greens/EFA MEP and European Parliament
rapporteur for the Pay Transparency directive in the Committee on
Employment and Social Affairs, comments:

*“Today, the European Parliament has shown that we can be a parliament for
progress and women's rights. Pay transparency is the best tool we have to
close the gender pay gap and I am very happy to start trilogue negotiations
with such an ambitious and strong mandate from this chamber. This
legislation has the potential to eradicate unjust gender differences at
workplaces across the EU. *

*“However, we are extremely disappointed that the EPP recommended their
members to vote against the best tool we have to close the gender pay gap.
This attempt to block progress on women's rights is especially upsetting
because we left the negotiations in the committees with a balanced text and
a broad support for the compromises.”*

*Terry Reintke MEP, *Greens/EFA shadow rapporteur for the Pay Transparency
directive in the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, comments:

*“In the EU, women still earn 13 percent less per hour than men. This shows
that the gender pay gap will not just disappear by miracle. If we are to
tackle this problem, we need joint action. *

*“Our position at committee level was agreed upon by the negotiating teams
of all democratic groups in the European Parliament, including the EPP.
That’s why it is particularly disappointing that so many EPP Members
changed their position and voted against the Parliament's negotiation
mandate with the Council. It’s time that conservative MEPs finally match
their words with actions and stand with women.*

*“This text is ambitious, far-reaching and has the potential to make a real
difference. We will defend this mandate in the negotiations with the
Council to finally close the gender pay gap in the near future." *

The adopted European Parliament position on the Pay Transparency directive
wants to lower the number of workers a company must employ in order to be
required to publish its pay gap. The Commission proposed companies with
+250 employees, but the Parliament says +50 employees with the option to
lower it further after a few years. With the Parliament's tightening, this
would cover about 60% of all employees in the EU. Moreover, the Parliament
states that workers representatives should be democratically elected by
employees and not cherry picked by management.

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