Full Minutes of the Meetings

SESSION OF MONDAY, MARCH 8, 2004

International Women’s Day

Karamanou (PSE). – Mr. President, I would like to thank you on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, which I have the honor of presiding over, for the statement you made on the occasion of International Women’s Day and for the emphasis you, as well as other colleagues, placed on the need for balanced representation of women and men in the European Parliament that will result from the June elections. However, Mr. President, I have already received a very serious complaint from the women’s organizations of Malta, who are informing us that the leaders of the political parties have already prepared their lists without including a single woman! I wonder, Mr. President, if the population of Malta consists only of men and not women.

I would like to kindly ask you, Mr. President, in honor of today’s International Women’s Day, to intervene personally on this matter and remind the political leaders of Malta that they must respect the principle of gender equality and the European acquis, otherwise their position in the European Union is expected to be very problematic.