The President of the European Commission Josè Manuel Durao Barroso and the Commissioner for employment and social affairs, Vladimir Spidla, announced in Brussels last week the creation of a new European Institute for Equal Opportunities between men and women (endowed with an overall budget of 52.5 million Euros for the period 2007-2013, to which will be added a slightly higher sum allocated to fund the new programme Progress for employment and social solidarity). The objective of the new institute will be to “help the European institutions and member states in the promotion of equality between men and women and combat discrimination based on sex”. According to President Barroso, the new EU agency which could assume the official name “EU Institute for Gender Equality” will be composed of a Board of Directors, an Executive Director at the head of a pool of administrators, a number of experts in the sector, an open consultative Forum, a documentation centre and a specialized library. The names of the candidate member states and cities to host the Institute have not yet been announced.
