Today the European Parliament voted in favour of an important resolution entitled "Progress on equality between women and men in the European Union in 2013". The resolution was put forward by Belgian MEP Marc Tarabella on behalf of the Women's Rights and Gender Equality Committee of the European Parliament.

This report focuses on a number of issues including the need to fight poverty, of which women are the main victims, and on the need to have more women in high positions, boards and secure jobs.  The report also deals with the need that the European Council implements the maternity leave directive whilst also encouraging a focus on paternity leave.  Emphasis is also made on the need that women and men receive the same salaries for the same work they do as well as the need to have more child care facilities. The report further addresses the urgent need to tackle domestic violence in a more effective manner.

The PL Maltese delegation voted in favour of the resolution as a whole but against all the clauses that refer to abortion.

When explaining their votes, the Labour MEPs made it clear that whilst acknowledging that this is an important resolution addressing the need to have effective equality between men and women, this does not in any way mean that they are in favour of abortion.

In another statement, Nationalist MEPs also said they had voted against abortion.

Today the European Parliament voted on a non-legislative report monitoring the progress on equality between women and men in the EU in 2013. Among other things, the report says that women should have 'ready access to abortion'.  

MEPs David Casa, Roberta Metsola and Therese Comodini Cachia said: "We fully support gender equality and we are committed to achieving this goal. However, we remain categorically against abortion. It is regrettable that a report that analyses the situation of gender equality was hijacked to include unacceptable references to abortion. The PN has always maintained that this is a subject that should remain the exclusive competence of Member States, which the EU cannot and should not get involved in.

"On this specific report (Tarabella report) we voted for all the amendments calling for improved gender equality but given that the amendments on abortion were carried we voted against the whole report to underline our strong opposition to abortion and to voice our serious reservations about attempts to encroach on the principle of subsidiarity", said the MEPs.