GUE/NGL MEPs Inês Zuber, Malin Bjork, Ángela Vallina, and Konstantina Kouneva have today celebrated the 30th anniversary of the European Parliament's Women's Rights and Gender Equality committee (FEMM).

The four MEPs were at a special conference today to mark the occasion.

The committee was formed in 1984 and GUE/NGL has long had a prominent voice at the helm of the committee: former Swedish GUE/NGL MEPs Eva-Britt Svensson and Mikael Gustafsson have both chaired the committee, from 2009 to 2011 and 2011 to 2014 respectively.

Today, Portuguese GUE/NGL MEP Inês Zuber is a Vice-Chair of the committee. Zuber commented: “The FEMM committee has been instrumental in pushing for equal opportunities in employment legislation, as well as getting issues like violence against women and sexual and reproductive health and rights on the agenda. The GUE/NGL work in the committee has also highlighted how austerity measures pushed by EU leaders have had particularly acute consequences for women.”

Swedish GUE/NGL MEP Malin Bjork, FEMM coordinator for the Group, said: “We, GUE/NGL MEPs, will continue to fight for women's rights both in the committee and in plenary, in close cooperation with women´s rights organisations in the EU and beyond; this is a particularly important struggle given the increase in reactionary right-wing MEPs in this new parliamentary term who seem intent on rolling back progress on gender equality.”

Spanish MEP Ángela Vallina said: “There is still a long way to go in the fight for women's rights and gender equality in Europe. Women and girls are still faced with inequality, violence, discrimination, and insecurity, across all aspects of life and society.”

GUE/NGL Press Contacts:
Emily Macintosh +32 470 85 05 08
Gay Kavanagh +32 473 84 23 20
European United Left / Nordic Green Left
European Parliamentary Group