From peace to health

Situation in Georgia, EU budget for 2009, and “social package”: just some of the issues debated by the European Parliament meeting in plenary session in Brussels from 1st to 4th September. The EP adopted a report spelling out how to fill the gap in earnings between men and women, also by “eliminating the penalization deriving from maternity leave”. MEPs then voted in support of a resolution concerning maternal and infantile health in the developing countries. Conflict in the Caucasus and relations with Russia. After the summit of EU heads of state and of government on the conflict in the Caucasus, held in the Belgian capital on 1st September, a debate was conducted on the same question in the European Parliament, followed by a resolution. In the document approved by the EP, the EU institutions are invited to “review their respective policies towards Russia” if Moscow “should fail to honour the commitments it signed up to in the ceasefire accord”. The EP therefore supports “the decision of the European Council to postpone the negotiations for a partnership agreement until Russian troops have withdrawn”. The document further “condemns the unacceptable and disproportionate military action conducted by Russia” without ignoring the initial “provocations on the part of the separatist forces of South Ossetia” and the consequent “attack” of the Georgian army against the separatist provinces. It endorses the conclusions of the EU summit in terms of the need for a negotiated, and not military, solution; underlines the need to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia; and calls for humanitarian aid to the populations that have suffered as a result of the conflict.The image of women in advertising. During the session the Parliament also approved a report presented by Swedish MEP Eva-Britt Svensson aimed at “protecting the image of women by eliminating the stereotypes created especially in advertising”. The report, though it makes ambiguous references to sexual “genders”, underlines the substantial equality, and hence the need for equality of opportunities, between the sexes. It points out that forms of discrimination are still widespread in the media: that’s why member states “ought to take appropriate measures to ensure that marketing and advertising guarantee respect for human dignity and the integrity of the person” and “do not contain any incitement to hatred based on sex, race or ethnic origin, religion or personal convictions, disability, age or sexual orientation”. Advertisers are urged to avoid having recourse to “anorexic” models. Messages with stereotypes against women should be eliminated from TV transmissions, internet, schoolbooks and toys.Vanishing children: alarm system. The European Parliament also asks member states to “introduce a common alarm system in cases of the disappearance of children”. The position, adopted by the EP in a “declaration” signed by the majority of MEPs, affirms that such crimes as the abduction of children are increasing and that often the victims “are transported over state frontiers”. The declaration further points out that at the present time “no alarm system exists at the European level and not even a national or local system in a large part of the EU”. Hence the request to create an EU-wide system of alert that would involve the immediate transmission of details of the child that has disappeared to the media, police forces and frontier authorities; these details should include a photograph and “information relating to suspected abductors”. Cross-border cooperation accords and the activation of a single telephone hotline would also be needed to tackle the problem.Health of mothers and infants in Africa and Asia. The EP also discussed, and then voted on, a document regarding the health of mothers and infants, especially in the developing countries of Asia and Africa. The document makes reference to the fifth of the eight Millennium Objectives, defined in 2000 to eradicate, by 2015, poverty, disease and underdevelopment in the world. “Each year – it was then pointed out – over half a million women die due to curable and preventable complications” during childbirth: 99% of these deaths are registered in the poor countries. The document – presented by the major political groups in the EP in view of the UN Conference on 25 September – asks inter alia for greater investments in healthcare infrastructures, the training of medical personnel, and the “education of women” in terms of prevention. The resolution, before being approved by a majority of MEPs, was modified with the adoption of some contentious amendments: one of these makes reference to the “possibility of safe and legal abortion” to curb maternal mortality in the poor countries. Another “deplores the prohibition, supported by the Churches, of using contraceptives, given that the use of the condom is fundamental for the prevention of diseases and unwanted pregnancies”. These considerations will meet with a prompt and appropriate response.