- Galdakao Mayor and EUDEL representative made a speech this morning in front of over one hundred people in Brussels, in his first European Conference as President of CEMR Committee for Equality (European municipalities).
- Ibon Uribe called local governments to play a leading role and activate all instruments within their reach to ensure Equality takes centre stage in the political agenda
Wednesday, 14th October 2015. This morning in Brussels, Ibon Uribe, made his first public appearance in Europe after being appointed Standing Committee for Equality President for 2015-2017 tenure by CEMR in June. Uribe is a member of EUDEL Management team and one of his aims as European Committee President is to position the Basque Country at the forefront of public Equality politics, through networking among municipalities and in collaboration with the other Basque institutions.
The new President anticipated the aims which will steer the direction of his mandate until 2017, with the ultimate purpose of achieving a greater impact of local Equality policies:
“Our municipalities are increasingly having more and more tools and expert staff to promote equality in local life (…).
However, inequality figures show us this is insufficient. Those of us who lead local governments need to become individually and collectively aware of the importance of taking Equality to the centre stage of politics, both in terms of contents and also the means to do so.”
The meeting in the Belgium capital attracted over one hundred representatives of local and regional authorities from member states, as well as the European Parliament and European Commission. Ibon Uribe attended the event accompanied by a Basque delegation spearheaded by Emakunde Director, Izaskun Landaida, Berango Mayor, Maria Isabel Landa, and Sestao Councillor for Social Action, Flori Núñez.
The Conference will be held at Brussels City Hall today, with a main session where the outcomes of a pilot project will be presented to measure the impact of the European Equality Chart on local life. At the same time, the programme includes three workshops analysing and discussing employment inequality, the political role of women in decision making and gender violence.
3 Priority Aims
Ibon Uribe, representing EUDEL, will be President for the next two years until the end of 2017, taking over from Ewa Samuelsson of the Swedish Association.
Uribe announced his intention to share and agree his roadmap with CEMR municipality associations. The new President aims to reinforce “team work” and co-ordination among local European governments to launch a transforming, efficient and sustainable policy strategy to implement Equality between women and men in local life.
The President has set three priority targets as the pillars to start his work:
- empowering the Committee for Equality (CEMR) to provide a greater boost within its scope of influence (associated local and regional governments and other institutions working in the same scope);
- promoting the integration of Equality as a central element of Democracy and as the basis for Good Governance; and
- contribute to raising individual and collective awareness of politicians in the associations who are members of CEMR and local governments represented by them.
The CEMR Standing Committee for Equality is the maximum authority for the co-ordination of local Equality policies in EU countries. The Committee consists of politicians representing the main European municipality associations.
Along with the European Equality Chart, subscribed by 1,500 local and regional authorities, the CEMR has other instruments such as its Observatory which shares good practices and assesses the impact of public Equality policies on local life.