European Union

La situation en Serbie, marquée par des manifestations contre le régime en place, signe le début d'une possible rupture de l'isolement des Balkans. Même si les autorités parviennent temporairement à réprimer les protestations, celles-ci finiront par ressurgir, tant les tensions sociales et politiques accumulées sont profondes et persistantes.

- Libres opinions. L'espace de débat du Courrier des Balkans / Serbie, Blogs - Diaporama, Grand Bazar - Diaporama

In today's edition: ETS2, fuels tax, EU climate targets, India and energy

Die Cheerleader der New Orleans Saints sind für spektakuläre Stunts bekannt. Dafür trainieren die Tänzerinnen jeden Ablauf akribisch. Bei einer Figur geht im Training aber alles schief.

Une juge américaine a ordonné l’expulsion de Mahmoud Khalil, un étudiant qui a dirigé des manifestations propalestinnienes à l’université de Colombie. La magistrate de Louisiane […]

L’article États-Unis : une juge ordonne l’expulsion de Mahmoud Khalil vers l’Algérie ou la Syrie est apparu en premier sur .

The EU's 27 countries are yet to fix a common position on how fast to cut emissions

Der norddeutsche Rundfunk setzt die konservative Journalistin Julia Ruhs ab. Ihr Format «Klar» wird künftig nur noch beim BR ausgestrahlt. Die Entscheidung stösst auf eine Welle an Kritik.

Meta's lead privacy watchdog hires Niamh Sweeney, who previously led public policy for Meta-owned Facebook Ireland and WhatsApp in EMEA

Folge 25 im Podcast «SCHLIIFTS?» – zu Gast bei Dino Kessler und Raphael Walser ist SCB-Legende Thomas Rüfenacht. Er spricht über sein kaputtes Knie. «Vielleicht gebe ich noch mein Comeback», scherzt er.

Im Eishockey-Podcast «SCHLIIFTS?» gibts was zu gewinnen: Sechs Tickets für die SCB-Fanbank für die Partie Bern gegen Fribourg am 30. September – inklusive Konsumationsgutschein! Jetzt reinhören, mitspielen und gewinnen.

2019 verliert Thomas Rüfenacht seinen Vater. Die SCB-Legende blickt im Podcast «SCHLIIFTS?» an die traurige Zeit zurück.

Nach einer Nacht-und-Nebel-Aktion kommt es für Thomas Rüfenacht zum Probetraining bei Ambri. Und dort kommt es für ihn zu einem schmerzhaften Zusammenprall.

Die russisch-nordkoreanische Zusammenarbeit entpuppt sich zunehmend als ungleiche Partnerschaft. Trotz umfangreicher Waffenlieferungen erhält Pjöngjang wenig Gegenleistungen von Moskau. Experten sehen Kim Jong Un als Verlierer des Bündnisses.

In today's edition: Anti-vax MEP, EU-India ties, clinical trials

On Monday, 22 September 2025 in room Spaak 3C50 (16:00-17:30), the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) will hold a public hearing on promoting an EU feminist foreign policy. This hearing brings together Margot Wallström, who launched the world's first feminist foreign policy in 2014 when she was Foreign Minister of Sweden, and Aude Maio-Coliche, the EU Ambassador for Equality, to discuss how an EU feminist foreign policy could take shape and what the EU is currently doing in this field.
A Feminist Foreign Policy is an approach that puts gender equality at the centre of foreign policy and highlights resources, representation and rights. The hearing aims to assess the current level of ambition and implementation of the EU's foreign policy as regards gender equality, and provide inspiration and concrete examples for continued work in this area.
Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

The veteran Socialist politician has been one of the most outspoken European figures on the humanitarian cost of the Gaza war

In today's edition: EUDR, trade preferences, CAP

WebGroup Czech Republic and NKL Associates
Advocate General Szpunar: a measure constituting a corollary of the provisions of criminal law or necessary in order to ensure the effectiveness of roadside checks comes under the country of origin principle, as provided for in the Directive on electronic commerce

In today's edition: Rollback on telecom overhaul, and Google's next step

Written by Marie Lecerf.

A persisting gender pay gap

The ‘gender pay gap’ is a measurable indicator of inequality between women and men. It generally refers to the average difference between the remuneration of employed female and male workers.

Although the gender pay gap is measured by different methods and indicators, data clearly show that women around the world still earn less than men. Across OECD countries, on average, the unadjusted gender pay gap stands at 11.9 % – meaning that the median full-time working woman earns about 88 cents to every dollar or euro earned by the median full-time working man. This rate has barely moved in recent decades. Despite the increase in women’s educational attainment and participation in the labour market over the years, the gender pay gap remains a persistent and multi-dimensional issue in all countries and across all economic sectors. For women with children, women of colour, migrant women, and women with disabilities, the discrepancy is even larger. In 2023, women’s gross hourly earnings were, on average, 12.0 % below those of men in the European Union (Eurostat, EU-27). Across Member States, the gender pay gap varied widely, ranging from -0.7 % in Luxembourg to 19.0 % in Latvia.

International Equal Pay Day The United Nations’ commitment

Mainstreaming the gender perspective is key to the implementation of the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Since 2015, the ‘equal pay for work of equal value’ principle has been recognised as one of the priority areas of the United Nations sustainable development goals (UNSDGs), as mentioned in target 8.5: ‘By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value’. In 2017, under the leadership of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women (UN Women) and the Gender Initiative of the OECD, and together with governments, labour organisations (e.g. ITUC), employers’ organisations (e.g. IOE) and other dedicated agencies, the Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC) was launched for the effective and swift achievement of the principle. On 15 November 2019, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming 18 September as International Equal Pay Day. The resolution was introduced by the Equal Pay International Coalition with the support of Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Panama, South Africa and Switzerland. The day is intended to promote further action towards the achievement of equal pay for work of equal value.

The first International Equal Pay Day – 18 September 2020

On 18 September 2020, the first International Equal Pay Day, international leaders committed to taking affirmative action to narrow the gender pay gap. EPIC called on participants to put pay equity  at the heart of  COVID-19 recovery efforts by introducing integrated policy responses aimed at mitigating job and income losses resulting from the pandemic and ensuring that women do not end up disproportionately shouldering these job losses and reductions in incomes.

The 2025 Equal Pay Day

For EPIC, the focus this year will be (1) ‘Achieving Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value in the Beijing+30 Era’ for the members-only annual Technical Meeting and (2) an Equal Pay Day event featuring a friendly debate between senior representatives of workers’ and employers’ organisations, underscoring the complementarity of a multi-stakeholder approach and measures being taken.

European Union initiatives

Equal pay for equal work is one of the EU’s founding principles, enshrined in Article 157 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Since then, there have been initiatives to address the gender pay gap at both EU and Member State levels. While some progress has been achieved, the gender pay gap remains a persistent feature of European labour markets. In response, as embedded in the EU gender equality strategy 2020-2025, the EU has complemented its soft measures by introducing binding legislation.

The Pay Transparency Directive (Directive (EU) 2023/970), adopted in May 2023 and in force since 6 June 2023, marks a recent step in the EU’s efforts to address pay transparency. It mandates salary transparency in job postings, bans the use of pay history, and grants employees the right to access information on pay levels by gender. Employers with at least 150 employees are required to report regularly on pay gaps. Where unexplained gaps of 5 % or more are identified, joint pay assessments must be conducted in cooperation with workers’ representatives. The directive also strengthens enforcement through a shift in the burden of proof, the right to compensation for victims of pay discrimination, and financial penalties for non-compliance. Member States must transpose the directive by 7 June 2026.

Other relevant legislation includes the Women on Boards Directive (2022), which requires listed companies to meet gender balance targets on corporate boards by mid‑2026, and the Work-Life Balance Directive (in force since 2022), which promotes equal sharing of care responsibilities by introducing new rights to paternity leave, parental leave, and flexible working.

In March 2025, the European Commission unveiled the roadmap for women’s rights to advance gender equality across all sectors of society, including a renewed push to reduce the gender pay gap.

European Parliament position

The European Parliament has long called for binding legislation to advance pay equity. In a series of resolutions since 2015, Parliament has urged the Commission to address persistent gender-based inequalities through stronger enforcement and transparency tools.

Parliament’s resolution of 30 January 2020 on the Gender pay gap urged the Commission to ensure that the forthcoming pay transparency legislation applies to both the public and private sectors, promotes the role of the social partners and collective bargaining, and includes strong enforcement policies for those failing to comply. Parliament’s resolution of 21 January 2021 on the new EU gender equality strategy stressed that binding measures are necessary to close the gender pay gap. In its 15 December 2021 resolution on Equality between women and men, Parliament called on Member States to develop an action plan with clear objectives to tackle the gender pay and pension gaps.

Members’ efforts have been key to shaping the final content of the Pay Transparency Directive and ensuring a strong implementation framework across the Union.

Read the complete briefing on ‘International Equal Pay Day‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

In today’s edition: French authorities brace for nationwide protests with 800,000 expected on the streets, two Italian lawmakers tied to Qatargate rejoin the S&D after suspension, and environment ministers meet on the 2035 climate target as Denmark pushes a UN workaround