Gender equality in Europe: a still imperfect model in the world

In a world where women’s rights are once again being challenged from all quarters, Europe remains the place where women live best. The principle of gender equality is one of the fundamental values of the European Union, laid down in the article 2 of the Treaty on European Union. Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights prohibits gender-based discrimination. However, there are still significant gender gaps in the European Union in the economic, political and social fields, and some setbacks, difficulties persist, and progress is still required to achieve true gender equality. Moreover, important European policies are on the agenda or have come into force in recent years to ensure that discrimination against women in Europe is reduced and that new forms of discrimination do not emerge. However, there is still a long way to go, particularly at global level, but also in Europe. With its comparative advantage, the European Union must ensure that any obstacles preventing European women from moving ahead are removed, because …their impatience is growing. And they are worth it!

🔊 read aloud

Policy paper of the Robert Schuman Foundation, the main French research centre on Europe, published on 7th March 2023, available for download as a PDF 2,2 MB

Gender Equality Index 2022, The COVID-19 pandemic and care

The Gender Equality Index is a tool to measure the progress of gender equality in the EU, developed by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE). It gives more visibility to areas that need improvement and ultimately supports policy makers to design more effective gender equality measures.

The Gender Equality Index has tracked the painfully slow progress of gender equality in the EU since 2010, mostly due to advances in decision-making. While equality is more pronounced in some Member States than in others, it is far from a reality for everyone in every area. Gender norms around care, gender segregation in education and the labour market, and gender inequalities in pay remain pertinent.

The Index allows Member States to easily monitor and compare gender equality progress across various groups of women and men in the EU over time and to understand where improvements are most needed. The 2022 Index has a thematic focus on care in the pandemic. It explores the division of informal childcare, long-term care and housework between women and men.

The Gender Equality Index score for the EU is 68.6 points out of 100. This marks an advance, but only just. Progress on gender equality is largely driven by the domain of power, which conversely has the greatest gender inequalities in the EU. Without this domain, the Index score would have fallen due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

🔊 read aloud

European
Institute for Gender Equality, available for download as a PDF 3,7 MB

State of Democracy, Human Rights and the Rule of Law

In her annual report, published on the Council of Europe Day 2023, the Secretary General says the Organisation’s standards need to be applied across every aspect of Europeans’ lives. 

The report looks at strengths and weaknesses in democratic institutions and focuses on the quality of the democratic environment, highlights challenges such as:

• increased violence against journalists, the use of surveillance to track and intimidate them and tactics ranging from detention to strategic lawsuits against public participation to prevent investigative journalists and others from doing their jobs;

• new laws and the misuse of existing ones to limit civil society, with public demonstrations wrongly classified as dangerous, excessive force used against demonstrators, non-governmental organisations faced with increased financial restrictions and bureaucratic hurdles, and the use of the legal system to undermine political opposition;

•a polarised political environment in which hate speech continues to grow, both online and offline, often targeting women and a range of minorities and vulnerable groups.

These negative trends are not found everywhere, and it is important to recognise that there also positive developments in some member states.

🔊 read aloud

Report of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, 2023, available for download as PDF 4,1 MB

Human rights report on the right to work

People with disabilities have the right to work 
like all other people. 
They should not be left out 
because they have a disability. 
However, in practice, 
almost half of people with disabilities in Europe 
do not have a job. 
But even people with disabilities 
who have a job:

• May get a lower salary
than people without disabilities
or no salary at all.
• May get jobs only for short times. 
• May not be trusted to do jobs 
of high skills or responsibilities. 
• May be treated unfairly in their work. 
• May work in workshops 
away from the community. 

Things are even harder 
for women with disabilities, 
young people with disabilities 
and people with disabilities 
who need more support in their every day lives. 
It is even less likely for them to get a job. 

COVID-19 made things much worse. 
It had a bigger impact on people with disabilities 
than on other people. 

Due to COVID-19, 
many people with disabilities lost their jobs 
and struggle to earn enough money to live on.

🔊 read aloud

European Disability Forum, Easy-to-read version, available for download as PDF 614,5 KB

The networks and narratives of anti-refugee disinformation in Europe

This report represents the findings of a study exploring digital manipulation around the refugee crisis throughout 2020. It seeks to outline the different online networks associated with anti-refugee disinformation and hatred in the Greek, German, and English languages, and the key narratives deployed by these networks. It is grounded in a network-first approach to analysis, exploring networks of accounts mentioning and being mentioned by social media channels identified as promoting anti-refugee disinformation and hatred. Through this approach the team identified a network of nearly 5,000 accounts associated with anti-refugee disinformation and hatred in Greek, German and English language, producing over 280,000 messages in 2020. An analysis of the content produced and shared by these networks evidences the ways these networks sought to mobilise in 2020 around key flashpoints, including tensions on the Greece/Turkey border at Evros in March, and fires in the Moria refugee camp at Lesbos in September. This research also demonstrates the interplay between political actors and extremists in the online ecosystems associated with anti-refugee disinformation and hatred.

🔊 read aloud

Institute for Strategic Dialoge, London, 2021, available for download as PDF 7,0 MB

Fear and lying in the EU: Fighting disinformation on migration with alternative narratives

Migration remains a salient political issue and a major topic of disinformation. Lies and half-truths about migrants spread freely across the EU. But the narratives and themes used by disinformation actors are not static. As events develop and public concerns shift, so do the 
types of stories pushed by those seeking to mislead. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a growing stream of articles linking migrants to infection risks and accusing them of receiving preferential treatment. 

Disinformation actors have certain advantages over other communicators, as they can promote simplistic or one-sided depictions of migration without regard for truth or accuracy. Rather than seeking to counteract specific claims, such as through fact-checking or counternarratives, communicators and policymakers should instead promote alternative narratives that can undermine the appeal of hostile frames and create ‘herd immunity’ against disinformation. Alternative narratives should especially target those in the ‘movable middle’ who are most open to changing their views, especially as these groups may also be more liable to being influenced
by disinformation. 

This Issue Paper examines nearly 1,500 news articles from four EU member states (Germany, Italy, Spain and the Czech Republic) published between May 2019 and July 2020. It shows that disinformation narratives about migration seek to exploit readers’ fears to polarise public opinion, manufacture discontent, sow divisions and set the political agenda. Disinformation actors link migration to existing insecurities, depicting it as a threat to three partly-overlapping areas: ° Health (migrants as violent criminals, potential terrorists, or a COVID-19 infection risk); ° Wealth (migrants as social benefits cheats, unfair competition for jobs, or a drain on community resources); ° Identity (migrants as a hostile invasion force, a threat to European or Christian traditions, or the subject of a conspiracy to replace white Europeans).

Rather than trying to counter disinformation stories about migrants directly, communication professionals and policymakers must instead promote alternative narratives that undermine the appeal of messages that incite fear and rage, and reframe the debate on migration entirely. 

This is the conclusion of a collaborative research project between the Foundation for European Progressive Studies, the European Policy Centre, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and the Fundación Pablo Iglesias. Its aim was to identify and analyse misleading and hostile narratives on migration in Europe and formulate concrete recommendations on how to tackle them. The authors examined nearly 1,500 news articles from four EU member states (Germany, Italy, Spain and the Czech Republic), published between May 2019 and July 2020. 

Disinformation narratives are so successful because disinformation actors link migration to existing insecurities, depicting it as a threat to three partly-overlapping areas: health (migrants as violent criminals, terrorists or carriers of disease), wealth (migrants as social benefits cheats or unfair competition for jobs) and identity (migrants as a hostile invasion force, threatening to replace white, Christian Europeans and their traditions).

🔊 read aloud

Issue Papier, European Migration and Divercity Programme, European Politics and Institutions Programme, Paul Butcher, Alberto-Horst Neidhardt, 26 November 2020, available for download as PDF 5,5 MB

The impact of disinformation campaigns about migrants and minority groups in the EU

This analysis, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation (INGE), aims to explore the impact of disinformation activity originated or amplified from abroad targeting minorities in the EU over the years 2018-2021. While disinformation has become all-pervasive, it can be considered as yet another tool being used to target vulnerable groups in society. Looking at recent disinformation campaigns that ethnic, religious and cultural minorities have been subjected to, this study finds both direct and indirect links between disinformation and fundamental rights, such as human dignity or physical and mental integrity, along with core European values, including equality, the rule of law and solidarity. The Roma are found to be victims of domestic disinformation, while migrants and the Jewish community are targeted by the Kremlin. The research found that disinformation by foreign and 
domestic actors as well as disinformation and organic content are increasingly merging, rendering measures to stop foreign disinformation more difficult.

🔊 read aloud

In-depth Analysis, European Parliament coordinator: Policy Department for External Relations 
Directorate General for External Policies of the Union, Judit SZAKÁCS, Éva BOGNÁR, June 2021
available for download as PDF 840,9 KB