The Presidency of the Council of the European Union has just passed to Germany for the next 6 months, and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has a focus on gender equality.  She funded BPW Germany €2M to execute their Equal Pay Day campaign in 2010 and 2011, and this is now a BPW International campaign.

The EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025 delivers on the European Commission’s commitment to achieving a Union of Equality. The Strategy presents policy objectives and actions to make significant progress by 2025 towards a gender-equal Europe.

The key objectives are ending gender-based violence; challenging gender stereotypes; closing gender gaps in the labour market; achieving equal participation across different sectors of the economy; addressing the gender pay and pension gaps; closing the gender care gap and achieving gender balance in decision-making and in politics. The Strategy pursues a dual approach of gender mainstreaming combined with targeted actions.

The evaluation of the implementation of the EU equal pay directive 2006 highlights pay transparency as a critical requirement to achieving pay equity.  As one of the first deliverables of the Strategy, the Commission has proposed binding pay transparency measures by the end of 2020. This aligns with the BPW Australia resolution on pay transparency passed by the 2018 National Conference.