Parliament calls for stiffer sanctions on gender pay gap

The European Parliament has urged the European Commission to improve existing EU legislation to close the gender pay gap, including stricter sanctions on employers.

The request for a legislative proposal points out that the gender pay gap still averages 16.4% in the EU, and in some member states has even widened.

"After almost forty years of obviously ineffective legislation, member states have only made small changes to their own legislation to tackle the gender pay gap and sanctions are not being imposed on employers," said Edit Bauer, author of the resolution.

In the text, adopted by a qualified majority, MEPs call on the Commission to propose new measures to reduce inequality in pay between the sexes through all relevant EU policies and national programmes. They also ask national governments to step up cooperation and develop new ideas to tackle the gender pay gap.