European Union News - Social Affairs

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has granted a €200 million loan to the Castilla y León Region to finance its investment in RDI, heritage conservation and educational and social facilities. The loan's main advantage is its maturity of up to 20 years, which is far longer than the average currently offered by commercial banks.

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) identified how the rights of women are violated in a way that is often exacerbated by other forms of discrimination. It has released some reports and fact sheets on the occasion of International Women's Day, as well as the launching by the European Institute for Gender Equality of the call for nominations to the "Women Inspiring Europe" Calendar 2013.

The data published by Eurostat shows that in 2011 there were in total 257 million women and 245 million men in the EU. Additionally, in 2010, there were 62 million women (24.5% of all women) and 54 million men (22.3% of all men) in the EU at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Besides, differences in employment rates between women and men reduce as the education level rises.

According to the European Commission, an EU and UNICEF project has helped thousands of families, communities and countries to change attitudes and end harmful traditional practices like female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) in Africa. The project helped to raise awareness of the dangers of female genital mutilation/cutting, by encouraging large-scale community discussions and national debate on issues of human rights.

The European Commission has pointed out that at this pace, it would still take more than 40 years to reach a significant gender balance (at least 40% of both sexes) on company boards. For this reason, the European Commission has launched a public consultation on possible action at EU level, including legislative measures, to redress the gender imbalance on company boards.

According to the latest figures published by the European Commission, women earn in the EU an average of 16.4% less than men. This is the reason why the Commission is raising awareness on the gender pay gap among the European citizens celebration the European Equal Pay Day. This year’s Equal Pay Day focuses in particular on employers.

MEPs at the Committee on Women's rights and Equal opportunities have approved a resolution in which they ask for introducing quotas to increase women's representation in political, administrative and business bodies and reducing the pay gap between women and men to respond to the current crisis.