Flynn urges EU states to use funds to back equality

IN a message for International Women's Day today, the Irish Commissioner for Social Affairs, Mr Padraig Flynn, has called on EU member states to exploit the potential of structural funding to promote equal rights for women.

The EU will be spending £140 billion in structural funds over five years, he said, making a significant impact on job creation in different parts of Europe. "Let's ensure that it also makes a significant impact on their capacity to build equality of opportunity."

Mr Flynn was speaking yesterday at a Commission seminar on maximising the impact of structural funds on equality. It is part of the Commission strategy to "mainstream" equality issues by insisting that all its programmes are assessed from a gender perspective. The Commission released figures showing a marked increase in its recruitment of women to all grades - particularly in hiring from new member states, where more than half the new recruits are women.

The Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Franz Fischler, announced a £16 million programme to support pilot projects aimed at promoting equality for rural women.

Mr Flynn promised that a new directive arising from the Kalanke judgment, which prohibited positive discrimination in recruitment of women, would be issued soon. New proposals on the burden of proof in sexual discrimination cases would also be issued.

"A complainant will have to establish facts raising a strong inference of discrimination and then the burden of proof will pass to her employer, who must show, if he can, that in fact no discrimination has occurred," Mr Flynn said.