The European Movement and its Pariteia campaign partners take the opportunity today, on the 2007 International Women’s day, to recall the importance of a commitment of both men and women to achieve gender equality.

In the European Union, during the last few decades, public authorities, the business world, civil society and media have focused more and more attention on gender equality in the labour market, in private as well as public life and in politics. However, the endeavour for achieving gender equality remained essentially a women’s issue.

This is why the European Movement and its 10 partners across Europe conducted the Pariteiacampaign from November 2005 until the end of January 2007. A series of interesting tools were developed through this one-year partnership, including a Catalogue of Good Practices, a Survey and a Charter of Intents for Equal Citizenship. These tools put particular emphasis on the role of men in gender equality in Europe and were the results of workshops held at the local level in the five participating countries: Italy, Latvia, Poland, Spain and The Netherlands.

As Pat Cox, President of the European Movement, highlighted on the occasion of the final conference of the Pariteia campaign: “the road [to gender equality] is long and the journey is incomplete. Significant gender gaps still remain. Fewer women are at work, of those at work fewer are in senior positions and women at work still are paid less than men. For men and women alike a satisfactory work/family-life balance remains an elusive prospect.”

In this context, we invite you to commit yourself to achieve an equal European citizenship and therefore support the principles contained in the Charter of Intents for Equal Citizenship.