On 23rd March PES Women held its yearly statutory meeting in Copenhagen.

In presence of Danish Minister for Gender Equality Manu Sareen and Spokesperson on Gender Equality Rasmus Langhoff MP, PES Women welcomed the Danish EU Presidency priorities to tackle gender inequality.

S&D Group President Hannes Swoboda talks about the European Youth Guarantee and how it was successfully implemented in his home country, Austria.

MEPs from the Socialists & Democrats (S&D) group in the European Parliament welcomed the PES call for a European Youth Guarantee and pledged to join the PES campaign to tackle youth unemployment.

The Party of European Socialists (PES) today joined with Belgian member parties PS Belge and Sp.A to highlight the huge unemployment crisis faced by millions of young women in Europe. The action, which took place in Brussels, on international women’s day, was part of “Women on the Bridge”, a wider event organised by European and Belgian Women’s organisations. The event took place at Brussels canal.

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Ahead of the International Women’s Day, PES Women is raising awareness to the causes underlying the unequal access to the labour market and calling for the implementation of concrete measures to tackle it.

On 5th March PES Women President Zita Gurmai addressed a crowd of young people at the Winter University of ECOSY to present the PES campaign ‘Your future is my future: Women count too’. The campaign calls for the implementation of a European Youth Guarantee that can provide a solution to unemployed young people; Mrs. Gurmai underlined the gender perspective of youth unemployment and its long term effects.

Today, on 2 March 2012 we “celebrate” the European Equal Pay Day (EEPD). This day is an opportunity to recall that gender pay gap is still 17% in the European Union today. Even if the principle of equal pay for equal work was enshrined in the Treaty of Rome in 1957, the reality is altogether different. My message today for European Equal Pay Day is to raise awareness and to mark the countdown to International Women’s Day on 8 March (see below for list of events).

Ahead of the 1st of March EU Summit, the Party of European Socialists (PES) has called for investment in the EU economy and investment in youth. In an open letter sent to the European Council, the PES made a strongly worded critique of existing conservative policies. “Spending cuts, further deregulation of the labour market and liberalisation of the service sector are not the answers”, the letter warns.

Martin Schulz, Hannes Swoboda and Lazslo Andor join Sergei Stanishev to promote PES campaign

As part of a strong call for more investment at EU level, European Socialists have called for a European Youth Guarantee to be part of the EU strategy.