 I'm Dirk Holman, your host and co-president of the Foundation and Director of OICOS, the Flemish Green think tank. As we learned during the previous sessions, people from all over Europe are following and that's great. You can put your questions on Facebook or you can also use Twitter to put your questions and I see them on the screen and then I will, in the second part of our session, we will deal with them. The topic today is feminist issues and women's challenges within the current COVID-19 crisis, but we also want to shed a light on how feminist policies can contribute to a green post-corona world. It is clear that feminist issues are coming to the forefront of public discourse across Europe in the current crisis. If we look at the people doing care work who are currently on the front line and so most exposed to the infectious disease, the majority of them are women. Think about nurses, nurse aides, teachers, childcare workers, age care workers and cleaners. This means we have to think about gender-sensitive responses for the gendered impact of this pandemic. At the same time, sadly, there's an increase in domestic violence and next, multiple countries are using the current situation for yet another backlash against gender rights. In order to discuss this wide range of issues, we have today three inspiring speakers. First we have Malgorzata Trax, member of the Polish Parliament for the Greens. Second, Laura Lopez, member of the Spanish Congress for Podemos en Cumeur. And third, Joanna Macy, secretary general of the European Women's Lobby. We first give the floor to Malgorzata to talk about the situation in Poland. We all saw the black protest in Poland in the news as the Polish government is again attempting to restrict sexual and reproductive rights. So let's start with that, Malgorzata. Would you please elaborate on what's happened, what is happening, what are the latest developments in your country? Yeah, I have this news that in Poland two weeks ago, we had another, let's say, wave of black protest, but it's very difficult in pandemic times when people are locked at homes and they cannot go on the streets. In the parliament two weeks ago, the Polish parliament proceeded the abortion ban bill. That was like a civil initiative. So somehow the government had to proceed this project. It was like a certain time to proceed this project, but the way that they did it in the time of pandemic and limited civic rights so women couldn't go to the protest was very significant. What happened? The black protest or Ogólnopolski's type kobiet, one of the movements of the feminism and one of the movement of the women's rights in Poland, they tried to organize a lot of activities online. So as we all right now on Facebook and social media trying to contact people, that was also like a big, big action in the social media, but also women found some ways to show that they don't agree on the abortion ban in Poland. For example, we had like a car protest. So they were people, one person in a car and all the cars, for example, were by the parliament, outside the parliament. They were also women and men as well, standing in line just next to the parliament, like with face masks, as we as we needed. With there was like two meter distance between them, between them. And it was very, very unfortunate. That was the civic project. And of course, our our parliament, which is mostly dominated by law and justice, the ruling party, and they are also far right. Other movements and politicians there. They voted the project to proceed to the parliamentary commission. And there's a question, what would be next? Because the same project was in the agenda of the parliament few years ago. And it was similar, similar situation that the parliament voted to move the project into the parliamentary commission. And then for a few years, no one touched the project. Yeah. So as we as we call it, it was just frozen in the commission. However, nowadays, our government is secretly using the time of pandemic to introduce a lot of changes in the in the public life. For example, we today, we had a parliament. We will debate for the third program to help people that lost that lost jobs. And it's not sufficient. And each time in this kind of programs, they trying to put some illegal issues. For example, they they introduced the postal voting that way. So we see that law and justice is really using this pandemic time to fight with all the groups that are against them. We will look at the situation. There's a motto of this feminist movement saying like we cannot be sure that this this project will just be frozen in the commission. And we have to be ready, monitor the situation and show all the time that we're ready and we will not agree to abortion, but important. OK, thank you. You spoke about the. Third wave of new measures of the government. Maybe you can explain to us what other measures they are trying to introduce or introducing that are restricting the rights of Polish people. They are also like mostly we have the biggest problem in Poland right now that the legal time of the presidential election. It's 10th of May. It's obvious when the schools are closed, when people stay at home, they cannot even have, for example, forests closed. For a few weeks right now they are open, but with all these restrictions and with all the danger made by the coronavirus, having the election presidential election in Poland is just impossible. They are not democratic, mostly because there's no way to actually have a presidential campaign for the candidates. The ruling president that it's law and justice. He's he's using the time of the coronavirus as an acting president to have the presidential campaign. But other candidates are in the total different situation. So there was the idea of the government that the election has to be on the 10th of May. And and they tried to open the gate through one of this like helping programs. They are called shields to introduce postal voting. Then they went even further because they right now. The parliament is debating on on the postal voting, like only postal voting for the 10th of May. We it was it was proceed in in the parliament. And now the Senate Senate is taking care of it. We know that there will be a lot of amendments to this project and we'll do as an opposition everything to stop this crazy presidential election. In May, we actually don't really know what will happen because everything will go back to the parliament of 7th of May. And then it depends if the opposition will be able to actually dismiss this project or change this project. Right now, as an opposition, we don't have the majority in the parliament, but they are some MPs from low end justice or from like the crap low end justice that are against this election. And they might vote like like us, like opposition. But we still cannot be sure of these actions. And there's also a possibility because by using one of the shields of this bills to help people, but with like restricting also the other the other issues. They introduced the law that the chairwoman of the parliament might decide that the election might be in the different date. It's like against the Polish Constitution because the election should be in the certain date and we should have like extraordinary state in Poland, the state of pandemic as we are right now, but the government is refusing to introduce it. So everything what the government is doing is like trying to win the election in the unfair campaign and also risking the health and life of Polish citizens. OK, talking about the health of Polish citizens, you are in contact with a lot of feminist movements. And as I said, and it will be the case in most countries, most of the health workers are women. What do the feminist movements were to women? Tell you about the situation at the hospitals, at care centers for children or aged people. The situation is very difficult. Our health system is not ready for fighting with pandemic. We don't have enough doctors, we don't have enough nurses. Mostly the age of the Polish nurse is above 50 years old. Of course, there's not enough staff and as in the feminine the feminine occupation quite often women are underpaid. So that's another issue. And right now we have a big problem with the carehouses because there's a lot of places in Poland when the nurses have to work for 20, 30 hours or even more hours without any break. Sometimes they don't see their families for days. There's also this always the danger that there's not enough equipment. For example, the Polish medical service nurses, doctors and the staff in hospitals or carehouses, they are not tested on the coronavirus. So they never know. They have contact with patients. And they never know if they are already infected. And then it's also the this horrible feeling that at some point they go back to their homes, to their families, children and they have no knowledge. There's like not enough tests in Poland. And we think as the opposition, as Greens, that the medical personnel should be the first, the first one to actually be tested on coronavirus. But the government doesn't doesn't see this need. So the situation of nurses is very, very bad. There's also the situation of women that to resign from work to stay at home because the schools are closed, the nursing houses are closed. So quite often in the Polish families, but I guess it's similar in all over the Poland that women earn less than men. So when there's a choice, who of the two of the parents will have to take the days off to take care of the of the kids. It's quite often women, as we know, then there's the whole way that they can not develop their career, for example, or even because it's quite common as well, the online online job. But it's also not the solution because when the women stay at home with kids, they they have to take care of kids. And of course, they have to still work and combining these both activities, responsibilities is not always easy. Thank you for this sketch of the situation. And indeed, I think in many countries, it's the same situation. And therefore, I would go now to Laura Lopez, who is in Spain, which is, we know, besides Italy, one of the most effective countries in Europe by the pandemic. So Laura, could you kindly give us an update on the current situation in your country and how this is affecting normal members of the Spanish society? Well, I think you can hear me. OK, so, yes, as you said, Spain is a European country with the highest COVID-19 impact. And that the government declared the pandemic on March 11, just two days after the World Health Organization declared the virus is a pandemic. Then, as I said, the measures taken by the government often then on were similar to those taken by the rest of countries. And it led to home confinement confinement for most Spaniards. Although the measures have had containment effect, they have brought about collateral social consequences. And since the virus does not differentiate territories that understood, but it's the direct and direct effects do differentiate degrees of vulnerability, social class or gender, as you already said to. Spain, like other European countries, has gone through a recent dictatorship that has marked the development of its democracy, its culture and its welfare state. And a certain academic spheres have pointed out we should not overlook the influence of the Catholic Church during the dictatorship. Family or marriage has long been considered the main or only relationship model. And that has shaped and the roles that have been passed down from one generation to the other. And it has made it harder for women to gain ground in a male, chivalrous society that has relegated us to the secondary and disease world roles. Today, women are almost completely integrated in the legal market, but we still present a lower employment rate compared to that of men. The number of women employed, as you said, is higher in caring services. And the salaries are lower in some sectors because of the gender gap or because it is more difficult to us. To get the positions of responsibility. Moreover, we still have, we still have, we still being victims of gender violence. Women, you know, we get killed just because we are women. Ageing women has been killed so far this year, according to the official definition of gender violence. Only two, only two in confinement situation. But 36 didn't go according to the definition of the many series.net, which counts all women murdered by men. And there are still two in Spain, women who are sexually exploited and who are victims of trafficking. With a lockdown situation and the suspension of the activity, as we can go forward, we have us with me. So the suspension of the activity and the confinement situation have had differentiated social consequences for women because of their participation on the labor market and because of the changes in their today life that the confinement brought about. More than 76% of the people employed in health services are women. So it is only women who had to assist directly people infected with the virus. Plus, especially since the measures for budgetary stability implemented since 2012, public health services has been working under pressure, suffering severe cut-downs on resources and dealing with increasing privatizations. There were cut-downs on salaries and safety measures and this affected mostly women. But not only are health and social services as you said, clearly feminized, but also the service sector in general, especially supermarkets, which take a front-line on railing, a front-line role dealing with the COVID-19 crisis. So the activity to cover basic needs during lockdown has impacted differently on women and on men, since it is women who primarily take care of society during the crisis. And not only the roles taken by women or men, but also the consequences that women or men are suffering, especially in aspects of poverty, loneliness, decreased exposure, as although you say, to gender-related violence and other situations related to sex abuse or trafficking. Maybe if you want, I can try to summarize for you some of the measures that the Spanish government has taken during the crisis. Yes, thank you. So the government, according to the law, we have a law of 2011, which allows the government to declare essential services in cases of emergency. This contingency plan that declared the government just after the declaration of the state of alarm had declared all comprehensive services fighting against gender-related violence essential. All providers and operators of assistance, services to women suffering gender-related violence, must remain available by phone or online on the operative 24-7. Then this contingency plan declared by the government has also established an alert message service direct to the police and has been activated for women at risk, which includes a delegation, as well as a chat-like communication service for psychological assistance. All these measures have been taken by the central government, but you know that the Spanish administration is divided into 17 so-called autonomous communities, and so each community has their own local government. So a lot will depend, of course, on how well these local governments implement the measures they are supposed to take to start with and to ensure that contingency plan is put to work. The central government has required local governments to inform on what their phone and online services are in their territories, as well as which are the face-to-face resources they count on, so that the 016 line, the telephone which has been operating at a national level for some time to fight gender violence, based violence can be conveniently updated, and that victims' calling are not derived to inexistent services in their areas, for example. In the period of confinement, the calls to 016 and emails have increased considerably if we compare to the same period last month. The central government has also took another measure to fight the vulnerability situations that had the women's victims of sexual exploitation of trafficking, as well as against those in prostitution contexts, including a minimum income and house rent and support. Okay. Thank you. You are also a member of the Gender Equality Committee at the Spanish Congress. How does the corona crisis affect the work of this committee? And what do you think are some of the most urgent actions needed to push in the coming weeks to protect women and girls better in this situation? In those days, in this confinement situation, most of the parliamenters can't go to the Congress, but we're still working on home. So what we are doing is two things. In one hand, we are making a following of the measures that the government has decided, as this one that I just explained to you, or the others to fight poverty or loneliness. For example, my book is pressing to the government in order to take measures to assure a minimum income. I think, and we are proposing that to the government, that this minimum income will help women provide that it meets four requirements, because there are women who are in cleansing works or maybe in care works that they even have a current drug. So they need a minimum wage because other measures will not give an alibi of her poverty situations. So we are trying the commission that this measure taken, well, it's not taken yet, but we are pressing to it. And we think that it would be a big measure if the paperwork required to ask for it is simple, easy, and fast. The sum should allow people and women to meet the expenses of a dignified life, and the assignment of income must not replace universal public services. And I think it's important, the wage must be an individual assignment, not a family one, that it's the form that they are talking to base, because if it is family, if the assignment is family, like it's the tradition in Spain, one may argue that families with children would get a higher wage and that would contribute to child poverty, certainly. But I think that it also brings a risk with it because if a woman lives the home, she would lose the assignment. So I defends that this assignment must be individual. Then we are in the commission doing the following of the consequences that we already decided to measure and we are looking the papers and we are really worried about some news that say that there is some sectors of masculine society. Completely, yesterday we were preoccupied, worried about a notice that said that there are some men who want to take advantage about the situation of vulnerability of some women that are in prostitution and we're very worried about that and we want to take action in the commission. Thank you. Referring to the last point, women in prostitution, you spoke about a minimum income, how can the government make sure that also these women receive this minimum income? Well, certainly the law, as it is now, it requires that this woman have met some requirements and certainly this can put their increase because they not always meet these requirements but in collaboration with the social workers and some ONG who are working in that sector, the girls in that situation can go there or by telephone or presential because they are ones that are still open and ask them to do the treatments for her. Okay. Thank you for this answer. We now go to the third speaker, Joanna Maycock. Joanna, as a Secretary General of the European Women's Lobby, I think you have a kind of broader overview from the perspective of the European level and I know your organization also wrote a briefing paper which we will share in the chat. Maybe you can also elaborate on that. Thank you so much, Dirk and thank you to the two previous speakers who really gave some vital input about what's happening at national level when it comes to women and girls. We at the European Women's Lobby have been working with our members which are women's organizations throughout the European Union and a bit beyond to really understand the impact of the pandemic on women and girls at national level as well as to understand the response by government and others at national level so that we can share and analyze the picture across Europe. So I'm gonna share a few elements of that with you this evening. And we have a briefing paper that we produce which has examples and analysis from across Europe. So that's gonna be shared, as Dirk said, on the Facebook page. The first thing I want to say though is that the crisis for women and girls in Europe is not a COVID crisis, it's a pre-existing crisis. We have stopped progressing on equality between women and men in Europe for the last decade. And so we are already second class citizens when it comes to experiencing our rights, whether that's around poverty, whether it's around exclusion from the labor market, whether it's around the epidemic, the existing epidemic of violence against women. And Mara spoke there about both the shocking statistics around murder but also the huge numbers of women who are desperately exploited and girls who are desperately exploited in the sex industry and in prostitution. So we already have a problem. We already have a massive problem that we are working on as an organization to raise the alarm on and to address. We bring into that this current situation of the pandemic and there are of course issues which are then exacerbated. Be they the issues of the economy, employment, care, violence, decision-making, so all of the aspects that we are already concerned about. And that's because our system is not made for women. In fact, our system is not made for people at all. Since I'm in this group, the system is not made for the planet either. And so we look at the future and how we can actually see a raise of hope about how we want to transform our system going forward to be really centered on human rights, on women's rights, on the rights of women and girls, on care for self, for each other, for our communities and for the planet. So I wanna talk a little bit about some of the specific aspects which we've seen across Europe. This crisis has exacerbated or has amplified or is in other ways exposed. And the first one is the issue of care. Women are doing all the essential work or much of the essential work, the vast majority of the essential work that enables all of us to self-isolate, to protect our health, to protect our societies. And actually that's a continuation of what is already happening across our societies. The work that's unpaid, underpaid, unrecognized, undervalued that women are doing to care for children, to care for our health, to care for communities, really as the backbone of our societies, to enable our societies to actually function. It's too often unpaid or if it is paid, it's underpaid, undervalued. Very often it's precarious work. So that means work which does not have proper social protection, proper contract or decent employment conditions. I'm talking here about the work of childcare, of cleaning, of retail, of work, auxiliary work in hospitals. And what that means is that those women are exposed to risks, both economic and physical risks. And in the current context, what we're seeing is that women are really shouldering and it's really become visible that women are shouldering the burden of caring for our societies and they're not being properly recognized or rewarded for that. More than 75% of health workers in Europe are women. The vast majority of those in the retail till sector, the huge majority of cleaners are essential day-to-day of childcare as well. And then when we talk about the actual situation of lockdown, the burden of domestic work and childcare in the home is also continuing to fall on women who are often also being expected to try and hold down their job somehow while caring for children. And we know that of course there are men who participate in domestic work and in childcare, but we know the vast majority of that work is and continues to be done by women. So I want to say something about the precarious nature of the work and also the fact that women are shouldering a lot of the childcare and other domestic work, it's impacting on household decisions about who should perhaps work less, they're part of work, take temporary unemployment where that's made available. And it's very often women that are stepping out and therefore it's impacting their professional lives and their also economic situation as well. When those women who are already in precarious work are also excluded from social protection measures. So an example one of our members gave was that the banks may be giving mortgage holidays. That's fine if you've got a mortgage and you own your own property, but actually there are no such thing as rent holidays. So those people who are really in a already underpaid sector of the economy are not being supported by those social protection measures. So it was really interesting to hear from Laura that there are measures here to enable and support those women who are exploited in the sex industry and prostitution who very often fall outside of those social protection measures. And we can only hope that the state can do this to support women who escaped from and live a decent life outside of sexual exploitation during the crisis and they can continue to do that afterwards so that no woman should be exploited in prostitution in that industry which only serves to exploit. So the second thing I want to talk about then is about violence against women. We've heard examples across Europe of, again, it's not a COVID crisis. It's an existing crisis, but it's been amplified by the COVID lockdown measures for example. So we've been hearing stories across Europe of the support systems that are often run by women's organizations. These are helplines. They are shelters that are specifically servicing and supporting women victims of male violence have already been ravaged by cuts over the last decade. And now also seeing an increase in demand by women who are facing situations of control, of coercion, of violence, of rape in their own homes as a result of the lockdown situation. So we've been gathering data and also making demands to make sure that these services are properly supported and funded, that these services run by women's organizations that have a feminist perspective and understanding and provide safe support for women and their families when they are victims of male violence are properly supported. We've also heard good examples of, for example, pharmacies or other businesses who are supported to receive complaints from women. So if women are unable to alert the services or make a phone call, for example, to a helpline because they're shut at home, there are ways through, for example, in France and in Spain I think as well where you can go to a pharmacy and actually the pharmacy will help you make that call so there is access there. There are also examples in some countries like France of shelter services being provided by hotels which are obviously not currently receiving many other visitors. So there are examples of things that have been done during this crisis that we'd like to see more of in the future. But I want to stress the crisis of violence, male violence against women is already endemic in all of our societies, be that in all our workplaces, homes and streets. Fifty-five-zero women are murdered every week in the European Union by a partner or ex-partner. And that isn't a crisis, which it doesn't seem to be when you look at the political and financial response then I don't know what is. So we need to make sure that if there's more attention to this issue right now, that that continues into the next phases. Then if I may, can I still have another minute or so, Dirk? We've been talking long. Okay, go. Good. There's so much to say about this. I think for us we want to also mention the, some of some specific situations. For example, we're very concerned about the situation of older women, particularly those who are either in isolation or his health is obviously more at risk because of the virus. And the situation I think of care homes really comes into focus through this crisis. In Belgium, the majority of deaths through the crisis, through the corona disease have been in care homes. And I think that raises some, and the majority of the elderly, of course, are women. So I think it raises questions more broadly for society about what we mean by caring for older people and older people in our aging societies. Again, very often, the people who work in those care homes, again, like those who work also in the auxiliary services, cleaning services and so on in hospitals are very often migrant women, very often minority women. So they're experiencing multiple discrimination. And I wanted in particular to talk about the situation of migration from East Europe, East of Europe to Western Europe. Malgozata might want to say something about this as well, but there are, of course, many women migrating into care jobs and cleaning jobs in Western Europe, from Poland, from Romania, from Bulgaria. Often again, outside of social protection systems on very low incomes, working and caring for our older people in care homes, also leaving a care gap in Poland, Romania, et cetera, which is then filled by women coming from further East. So this is an ongoing situation, which is not discussed in us, but I think is thrown into starker relief when people are in isolation and not able to cross borders either to return home or to care for their own families. The second thing I wanted to mention was also women with disabilities, women and girls with disabilities, who are also often more, depending on the disability, can be more exposed to the virus itself and to its impact. The situation of their care workers, often those care workers who come into their homes, also being very disrupted. There are many, many issues of concern really in the long run about women with disabilities that they face already, but within the specific area of COVID. We want to say overall that women and girls must not pay the price for COVID. It's a pre-existing crisis. There are a series of measures that we would like to see put in place at European level that make sure that we seize this moment to really recognize care, recognize the contribution of women, of all women, to our societies, to our well-being and put care back at the center of our economies and our societies. Care for people and planet instead of profit. And that means really rethinking our economic model and our society. And I'd be happy to, we've got some more examples of what we'd like to see the European Union do, particularly in terms of integrating a feminist perspective in the financial response, in the political response, and in the injection of special resources that are going to be managed by the European Investment Bank, for example, billions, trillions of euros, which are going to be stimulus packages. We need to make sure that those work for women. But now, up to now, it simply haven't done. So I'd be happy to also take questions or speak a little bit more about that later, perhaps. Thank you. Yeah, sure. I think it's very important we come back to that later to really see if new policies are developed, that as you said, it has to be policies that take care of women, of the planets and with us the basic concepts here. Care. So we are receiving the first questions of people from all over Europe. Laura, I have a question for you. It's on the single-parent households of which 80% of them are women, half of them with poverty. Do you know the government in your country is planning to implement specific measures to help these single-parent households, these women? The government, it was working to introduce a kind of minimum wage that it wasn't only for girls who are in a situation of prostitution or trafficking, but it was through all the situations. So there, since I know, not a specific measure for that matters, monopantering, but I think that it's a good measure that offer the minimum wage because surely it would benefit, it could be good for them. Okay. Thanks. Here is now also a question for Malgorzata. Does the Polish parliament work on regulation which could help women in lockdown suffering from domestic violence? Yes, actually, today, we had the parliamentary session, plenary session, and that was one of the subjects. Poland ratified the Istanbul Convention like five years ago, but since 2015, there was nothing done on the parliamentary level to actually introduce the law made by the convention. And today we worked on the government project that is actually very good and it's about the real help for the victims of the home violence in the terms of separating them from the people that hurt them. So it will give home victims, like the victims of the home violence, the tools, legal tools, to fight for their rights and to have a proper shelter. However, that's the law that we're working right now. It's like five years old, especially after the policy of the Polish government that cut all the public finances for the women organizations. For example, we had the Center of Women Rights, Centrum Praw Kobiet, that's a well-known in Poland organization that was helping women that were suffering from domestic violence. And a few years ago, the government just cut public funds for them, and they were in every city or in many cities in Poland, they were doing like the real job, the psychological help, the legal help, the telephone lines, also finding the new places for women and children that experienced violence. So it's a bit weird and also especially that in the time of pandemics, it means that there's a lot of cases right now when we are all in isolation, when people are suffering quite often at homes and we know there's more and more cases of the home violence. So far the government did nothing to introduce like a special law about helping people that are isolated and suffer more. There is also no like extra phone call lines even for people that looking for help. So I think they are the issues that we should focus now that nothing in the days of pandemic when we should care about people that are victims of the home violence, we did nothing so far, yeah? So we will have to work more to provide the help that is needed. Okay, thank you. So Johanna, we return to you. You were eager to elaborate on the much needed policies by member states, by the European Commission. So what are the core recommendations? Yeah, thank you very much. I wanted to say that on the 4th of March the European Commission issued a strategy for gender equality. On the 4th of March seems like a completely different age today. I think it was the last kind of event I went to before I entered into lockdown. But we had actually been five years at the EU level without a strategy, a political strategy for achieving equality between women and men. It's absolutely mind-blowing when you think about the fact that equality between women and men is one of the core values of the European Union and has actually been in the treaty since the Treaty of Rome which had equal pay for work of equal value included in it, so which we are very far from having achieved. I'll maybe come to that in a second. But we had a strategy actually published on the 4th of March and one of the things we want to make sure is that that strategy doesn't get forgotten or pushed to the wayside but actually is integrated into the response. So the strategy talks about the ratification of an implementation of the Istanbul Convention. Really, really important, has been delayed in the Council for the last few years and we know that countries, even countries that previously ratified it, such as Poland, have kind of retreated from it or not implemented it. So we think that it's absolutely essential that the overall strategy is not forgotten and actually that progress is made. So it looks at Istanbul Convention and action for violence against women. It looks at issues like implementation of a better work-life balance. Again, issues around the care and the balancing of care between parents and between parents and wider society. It also has proposals for equal pay. So there was supposed to be some legislative measures this year to be introduced around pay transparency. So requiring companies and employers to publish pay gaps. But we've recently heard that that is the first thing, one of the first things which has been removed from the work program of the Commission this year. So we are saying, absolutely, this is not the time to remove that from the work program. Right now, we need action to understand what does equal pay work of equal value mean? Actually, what does equal value mean? When we look at employment and we look at pay and why is it that the work that women do in the sectors where women work are very often those that are the lowest paid? So we are concerned that things should not get delayed or pushed off the table. So that's our first thing is let's implement that gender equality strategy. Really central to the gender equality strategy that the Commission, in fact, we would rather call it the strategy for equality between women and men as is the French title, because we think that's clearer about what the focus of this should be. And that is actually the language of the EU treaties. We also, one of the really key things and the strong things in the strategy is to introduce a gender analysis and gender perspective in all of policy areas. And that includes in the budget. So for example, the Green New Deal, which I'm sure the listeners and the Green European Foundation has been following really closely, will not work and cannot work if we do not consider the different impact on women and men and if we don't integrate a gender perspective into the overall Green New Deal and into all the funding that comes from that. So these are things which are already suggested in the strategy, but we wanna see and make sure that a gender perspective is really integrated into the COVID response, into the Green New Deal, into the digital transformation, et cetera. When I'm talking about the funding, it may, I don't know how familiar the people listening are with the concept of gender budgeting. This is the idea of looking at budgets and understanding based on sex disaggregated data, the different impact and the different impact that the funding and the resources will have on women and men. If we think about COVID response and we think about trillions of euros or certainly hundreds of billions of euros in loans, in stimulus packages, et cetera. If you invest that without thinking about the inequality and the different experiences, the existing inequalities between women and men, you're actually investing trillions of euros into an unequal system. So you're actually reinforcing the inequalities. It's not neutral and there's no such thing as neutrality. We want to make sure that there's a gender perspective into the European Union's multi-annual financial framework and into all of the stimulus packages. With a study done last year by the European Institute for Gender Equality, which I highly recommend, anybody who wants some statistics and studies on this stuff in Europe, have a look at that. Looking at the cohesion funds of the European Union, which is a big chunk of the European Union budgets and is supposed to be precisely about addressing poverty, inequality and regional disparities. And less than 2% of the funding was going to advance gender equality. Less than 2%, not even 50%. So a long way from 50%. So this is a real, real challenge and a real problem. So we want ultimately to really get to rethinking our economic system. We've saw, we cannot let the EU repeat the past mistakes it made in the response to the financial crisis. I think everybody here would agree with me that austerity, which was a political choice and imposed and supported by the EU along with its friends in the IMF, et cetera, has been at utter failure, has been a complete disaster for Europe, politically, socially and economically. And most of the burden of that austerity has fallen on women's shoulders. As you strip away funding, Myla Gorsche talked about the fact of stripping away funding for women's organizations, providing shelters and care and support for domestic violence. But if you strip away the public sector, you reduce the number of well-paid jobs in the public sector. If you reduce after school clubs, if you reduce childcare or elder care, all of that falls on the shoulders of women who are pushed into more and more low-paid jobs and part-time jobs. More than 75% of all the cuts in Europe under austerity came out of women's pockets and we were already the poorer. So we need to make sure we're not going to repeat that mistake again. We need a real investment. We need to really release resources to encourage governments and regions to invest in gender responsive quality public services that will help us really build the kind of society we want to build after this. Where we're learning from this and we're learning from the past and setting foundations for a really much more, a better society for everybody, where care is really right at its heart and right at its center and not the race for profit and growth, which is actually destroying our planet and destroying our health and our wellbeing and destroying our lives and actually contributing to inequality and intolerable inequality. I have many others, but I will start on the way there, maybe there are some questions and let's take the other speaker as well. But there came, there was an interesting question here on the chat and maybe all of three, all three of you can respond to it. The question is whether this is the right moment to push for a legal recognition of unpaid work and could this policy come under the name of a universal basic income? So maybe first Lara, when you think about this proposal, do you hear me? Yeah, but I just forgot. Well, I just answering if you are so kind on paid work, okay. Just, I forgot what you asked about. Sorry, well, here in Spain, it's partially a week of night since we have a special regime for that women and men who are on unpaid work at home. And in the special measures also in the time of COVID-19 to assure that did in concretely or especially women did not lose their income in this period. But there is an attempt in Spain to recognize the unpaid work, mostly do it by women. Okay, maybe, how goes that Poland? Yeah, it's of course a problem, but I think it's also one issue that is worth mentioning. It's like a grain zone. For example, I guess it's similar in different countries as well. But for example, in Poland, even if the government is pretending that wants to help a specific workers. For example, artists or people that lost their jobs or people that have no long-term contracts. I think that another issue are like the people that have no contracts. We know that the grain zone exists and no one can deny it. And quite often they are migrants, as Joanna mentioned before, quite often they are women that just need extra money and they do the household jobs, they offering, they work. And right now when they left without any source of income even if it was not without tax, because it was not registered, then there's no help for them from the government. So maybe the idea that I think like going maybe a little bit more into like a green ideas of the guarantee basic income. So the money that everyone will get without like the reason, like this basic income that everyone can share and it's provided for everyone especially in the times of pandemic. That's one of the concept that we should think about. The concept is generally more and more popular, but in the times like that when people just lose their jobs from day to day, it would be something to consider. Okay, going back to maybe one question, Margo Zadda, Joanna spoke about the situation of women from Eastern Europe now working in Western Europe, in care centers or hospitals and that the empty places in Poland then are filled with women coming from other Eastern European countries. What about their situation? Yeah, that's another topic we have in Poland a lot of Ukrainian workers, both women and men and honestly they needed before the pandemic, they were job offers almost in every shop and they were people needed to work. Right now the situation, it's more difficult to get the access to the permanent stay in Poland even because of the project reason that the offices are closed, yeah? In Poland the courts or the municipal institutions, they don't work as they used to do before for eight hours a day, but the times are limited. That means as well that the time that we apply the documents and we wait for response. For example, you can still stay in Poland, it just takes longer. There's also another issue I think connected with it. We have right now, I mean, a lot of people in Poland have a big problem because of the closed borders. On the German Polish border, there was a big movement, yeah, of the workers. So people that lived on the Polish side, they work on the German side, the same on the border of Polish and Czech Republic. And right now when the borders are closed, the situation of the people is, they just cannot work. There's a lot of protests going around it that they lose it, yeah? They source of income because they just cannot cross the border. And that was not the situation when they took the job. So I think that's also one of the issues that probably many countries in Europe are experiencing. And nowadays it's normal, yeah, that in united Europe, let's say, it's possible to live in a different place than we work. Okay, thank you. There's another question for you. How do feminist groups stay mobilized in this time of physical isolation? It's not easy, but mostly social media. When I mentioned that before the abortion ban was in the parliament, the feminist movement organized a set of social media actions. I, for example, participated in one of it. That was just, that was Saturday just before Easter. And it was one day long, I think like 12 hour long interview. The leader of the strike of women, Marta Lempart, she was like a host of the event. And she invited a lot of feminist activists, also MPs. Each of us had like 15 minutes or half an hour to speak about the abortion bill, what we will do in the parliament, what's the way to protest, answering the rhetoric question, yeah? Why do we have to fight abortion ban again and almost every two or three years in Poland? And I think it was very unique event with a lot of audience. And it showed that even in the pandemic times, we can still resist somehow. Also, for example, a lot of gadget of feminist movements. They were at t-shirts, yeah? And the leader of the strike of women delivered these t-shirts to parliament and asked us to wear them, yeah? As a sign of protest. So even in the parliament, when we were processing the abortion ban, most of the opposition MPs, female MPs, were wearing black. That was like our sign of the black protest, the solidarity, yeah? Like it was a few years ago. And some of us had also the t-shirt with the logo of the strike of women. There was also, we had, for example, in the previous years, two citizens initiatives saving women. We were collecting signatures to present the citizens project in the parliament. And that was liberalization of the abortion law. So we also had quite a lot of gadgets from these activities where a lot of feminist movements were involved in 2016 and 17. So I think that was the solidarity, yeah? That was shown and also by the parliament, yeah? For example, I joined for a while to the women, feminist or women standing on the streets. We were trying to support them. It wasn't that easy because it was this element of fear, the policemen were standing on the street. It was like from George Orwell, the signs that it's better for you to stop the demonstration. Remember to keep the distance. You should go home. And it was kind of very weird experience, but I'm very grateful that there was quite a lot of women that were supporting our fight in the parliament, yeah? And we were supporting their fight on the streets, even in such difficult conditions. Okay, thank you. Lara, in Spain, you have the same experience that now social media are really important to stay connected. It is, but social media and conventional paper, it's not rare to see the newspapers. There were articles about the coronavirus world or also the coronavirus administration in a gender perspective view. And also, yes, in the social media, Twitter, Facebook, and so on. But what it's difficult to find, it's some voices that relate the feminist perspectives or perspective, the gender perspective, with the real perspective. There are a lot of people worried and working about the issues that affect the women and a lot of people working on the issues that affect the planet, also starting and spreading the relation about our lack of, or the lack of consciousness of some sectors of the society, about the necessity of carrying the planet. But there is still a lack, a kind of lack of connection between the green politics, the green voices and the feminist voices. And I think it's part of the same thing as it said Joanna before. We have to put the care perspective, the gender perspective, just in the center of our politics and care, our selfless and caring our planet. Okay, I think this is the perfect moment to return to you, Joanna. You really were already explaining how we could combine the care for women with the care for the planets. We have to combine these perspectives and new green deals. So, yeah, what are your further ideas on this? Thank you. You might be able to hear some background noise because there's very enthusiastic eight o'clock clapping happening in my street every night. So all the neighbors are out clapping in respect for actually the people who are going out and doing essential work, most of whom are women. So you might be able to hear some background noise, my husband. The window for a moment. Practically joining in. So, yes, absolutely. And I think there's a lot of common ground actually. And we've seen one thing that gives me a lot of hope is that we've seen over the last five years a huge upswell, I think, of interest and awareness and activism around women's rights and feminism and also around climate change and combating climate change. And I think that there are many common threads in the two combats. What the main thing is that we want something transformational. We want something different to be coming next in terms of our economy and our society. We know that our current system is failing the planet, it's failing people, it's failing women and girls. So we need something, we need imagination. We need action. And we need to really be able to build, put down foundations to build and renew our system. So I have a sort of allergy to the word recovery. I know it's really important when it comes to health but recovery from this particular pandemic, we do not want to go backwards. We do not want to go back to what we had before because it was already a crisis. It was already a crisis for women. It was already a crisis for most in terms of inequality. It was already a crisis for the planet. So I think we can bring together some of our thinking, some of our power, some of our collective energy, some of our power of those in parliaments but also those in civil society and the streets. We've seen also the power of women leading environmental movements and climate change movement, including the young women here in Belgium and globally. So we need to see a different kind of leadership, a feminist leadership that dares to imagine something different for the future, something that's actually built on the spirit and the values of care and equality and justice and feminism. So one thing I would say is make it more concrete is that we cannot have a green new deal that ignores women. So that actually ends up being an investment in the inequality which exists already. That means making sure that the policies are designed with an understanding of who pays the price and who does the work is a simpler thing as if you want more recycling or if you need to use less and consume less, what does that mean in terms of who's taking up the slack and the work, right? So you know that the recycling gets done, most of it gets organized by women. So it's like extra work that women have to do. So we need to think like how are we going to do this differently and how are we going to create societies that enable everybody to participate in that care? I wanted to come, if I may, to the question of the basic income. Because I know it's a very popular theme in the environmental movement and we definitely feel that there's a need for balancing work, life and what we would say is it's actually about making sure that people, women and men can be equal earners and equal carers in a context where we are not all being pushed to burn out and overwork and long hours, including, I insist on this, not just those in professions, but those also in the lower paid jobs who are having to do multiple contracts to survive. So it's all very well to think about a basic income, but if you do not do the gender analysis of how that will be impacting on the lifetime earnings, well-being and income of women and men, it will disadvantage women. That I can be, we can assure you. So a basic income must come, we would rather talk about a minimum income guarantee that everybody has a minimum income guarantee. And it has to also come with the provision of proper state-funded services and public services. So it's fine if you have proper well-resourced childcare, eldercare, hospitals, public transport, recycling, et cetera. And you have proper measures to really support working families, men and women. But if you just do a blunt basic income and you don't support it with a proper shift in values and a transformation of the economy and the public services, what might end up happening and what will very likely end up happening is that women will end up, and my cat has joined. Here she is. She's also a green feminist. What will end up happening is that women may be pushed out of the labor market so that the well-paid jobs with good social protection, good pensions will be reserved for men, while women are increasingly pushed into the home to look after children and do the domestic chores without a decent pension at the end of it, without the ability to invest in their careers as well. So we need to be very cautious about basic income if we're not considering the wider implications for women and men and our wider societies of that. So let's be cautious about basic income without, let's make sure we do the proper discussion about how it will impact and how it can be made to be feminine. So we rather talk about quality public services, laws that support working families, laws that enable also men to take part in caring, and a wider reflection about the kind of society we want to build where people are not having to work around the clock and I wanted to mention here also the impact on mental health, which we haven't really mentioned here. In COVID, I think that's a big discussion, but in more generally, the levels of stress and anxiety that people are facing, and women and men, women also having to balance too many things on their shoulders. And I think that's something also that we need to consider more in our response and is an issue, I think, for the environmental movement as well. Whether it's about anxiety about the planet, which we see a lot of anxiety amongst young people, or whether it is about how we deal with the changes that are coming actually and that need to happen, the positive changes that need to happen. So I think, yes, the green and feminist agendas can be united, but it means that we need to keep discussing the gendered impact and the environmental impact of the different policies that we are pursuing as we're campaigning for. Okay, thank you very much, Joanna. I think this is a key point, integrating feminist and green perspectives and proposals. And I think it's already happening. There's a last important point made in some questions. It's about how can we enhance solidarity in Europe? Especially, of course, with people that are affected, people that are already living in a difficult situation. So I think this is also a question that's very interesting to hear the response of all three of you. So maybe first Laura from a Spanish point of view. And I think there's also this perspective from countries from the South and the reactions from countries like the Netherlands on European solidarity. So what's your perspective on this? I think that it's necessary more Europe, but maybe not a Europe as someone wants to make and they has made until now. We have, we need more solidarity, European Union. In all this, all the spheres, I mean, to fight against the exploitation of the workers. So not only for the response on the COVID and the coronavirus and so that, but there are differences between countries that only can be tackled if all the workers of Europe, I want to save the world, but this would be another thing. All the workers of Europe are united because in a different situation, we cannot gain our rights because we gain our rights, but other worker in other country, it's suffering the consequences of that. So I need that we have to strengthen our European Union and think together about the rights of the workers, about the right of the women all together because the situation in which country may be different from another country, but maybe this last country can repeat the situation that the first country has gone through and to tackle. And this I think is one of the, one important thing, the commutation in the air. Before Joanna said that we had to think about the consequences that the different policies had on men or women or the consequences that the different policies have on the environment. Well, I think that not only that, I agree with Joanna, but I think that we have to think, not only the consequences, but we have to concrete the policies that we want to pursue. I mean, maybe everybody can agree about that we need more feminist policies, more solidarity in Europe as the question was about, and more green policies. But I think that it's necessary that we quantify these things. When we say that we want more policies in a gender perspective, what we are saying how many money have the state, the local government's Europe has to put on this to concentrate people, maybe to tackle some differences that needs some amounts of money. If when we are talking about green policies, the green new deal, green justice, what we are saying concretely, how many money, what we are gonna do. And I think that it could very good for women and for the planet that we reach on European women and you know, complete commercial. And we go all together with that, sorry. Okay. Thank you. Margo Zeta, what you take on the kind of increased European solidarity we need I think that increasing the solidarity in Europe is actually the key to keep European Union going. There's no other way. We can see that always in the time of the crisis and especially right now far right movements or populist movements. Sometimes populist left movements, political parties, they gain approval of the society with these strong statements. And they might use the times of coronavirus for that situation. We even know that Ursula van der Leyen apologized Italy for not helping on time when the help was the most needed. And the same voices I can hear, for example, in Poland from the far right movements, that Europe is not helping us in the times of crisis. We're receiving no help. So what's the point of being in European Union? And there's a bad atmosphere about European Union in many countries is growing. And the only response we can have is this European solidarity. Also, I think that Green New Deal might be in danger because now it's always this dilemma. We have like a plan of Green New Deal. We as Greens, we think it's not ambitious enough on the European level. However, we in Poland think it would be great to have Green European Deal because our government doesn't even accept that, the European agreement. But right now, there are more voices of the politicians saying like we should forget Green New Deal and we should focus on economy. So make exactly same mistakes. And as in the past, that always the climate has to wait, the transformation of our economies has to wait because there's a crisis and we have to try to keep the economic model as usual. So instead of thinking about how to change it, so it would be better for people. It would be based on the common goods, on public services, on the community, working as a community more than just individual profits. We might go as European Union back to let's say to the stage before even the idea of Green New Deal. And I guess what's extremely important right now and especially for us as Greens is to decide to have the debate and make like a strong statement and the vision of the world after the coronavirus when the pandemic will be over all over the Europe, we should already have the response. How should the world look like? We should also show that Green New Deal or fighting climate catastrophe is not a challenge, is a chance for us to change our economy, to create new green jobs, to create a more equal society when also women and men rights are respected on the same level. So I think there's a lot of job ahead of us as Greens and also ahead of the whole European Union if we want to develop the European project and use the pandemic, let's say the situation after the pandemic to create new vision of the community. Okay, thanks very much Johanna. You also are mentioning a statement on solidarity. In this moment we will share it on our chat. Maybe you can explain it. Yeah, I mean it's essential and it's a recurring theme from our members as well. This is not the time for Europe to retreat, but for Europe to step up and to show solidarity across the continent. And that means amongst and between people, member states and civil society as well. We had, and particularly I think one of the things that is recurring is around the need for European action when it comes to looking at the stimulus package, when it comes to looking at the Green New Deal. We're not going to solve the climate catastrophe. We're not going to solve the crisis of inequality between women and men. We're not going to solve the massive issues of inequality and poverty in Europe unless we take those challenges together and we work together to find those solutions. And when we see opportunities for that transformation to happen. Yes, we need solidarity between and amongst countries. Absolutely essential. And there's a lot of scars I think from the response to the financial crisis and how that impacted particularly in southern and eastern Europe. But I think more widely we've seen that that has been a political, social and economic disaster. So we don't want to have that. So we need to pool our resources, our financial and our intellectual and our political resources to have a Europe that's really built on solidarity and care and sharing. And it will be beneficial to everybody in the end. So the joint statement, which I hope you'll share is a statement that we did with the trade unions with the environmental NGOs, with some human rights and democracy NGOs, with the women's movement with more than 15 organisations who signed that. And it's really a call to the European Union leaders to act in solidarity to build a Europe that's built on, that's green, that's feminist, that's built on solidarity and social justice. And it sets out some recommendations and some demands in it that people can sort of short statement. And we shared that widely last week ahead of the summit. And I wanted to say a moment of solidarity on Friday. It is the 1st of May, which is the International Labour Day. Some of us have a day off in our homes. But I think also it's important, as other people have said, that there is solidarity amongst workers, whatever that work is. And specifically looking at women workers and women in the labour market and outside the labour market. I think it's really a moment to value the women at the forefront of fighting this pandemic. Women who are really doing the essential work and make sure that we don't forget those women when we're building a new Europe after this pandemic is over. But then we actually celebrate and value that work that women are doing now, right into the future as part of what we build together for the future of Europe. Okay. I think we all agree that this is the moment to build a new Europe. As always, the time has gone faster than thought. So we are coming to the end of this Green Post-Corona talk. And I have a last question for the three speakers. And my question is if you would do a recommendation for a feminist reader, what kind of article, book order or also maybe a person of a tiktok, would you recommend Reader to Find the Inspiration? Reader, you find your inspiration. So may I ask Laura? As published an interesting book, it's a Joanne Reader book. I don't remember now the title, but just a moment because I will say it before we go. Okay. No problem. Maybe then Mark goes out. I guess the main message for all the feminists and for all the women, just keep fighting. Because there are so many issues we should still fight for. In Poland, it's not only like fight abortion ban, but we have to fight for the liberalization of the abortion law. All over the Europe and in the world, we have to fight for the better salary or equal salary, better division of the home responsibilities. And about the inspiration, I think the contact with the women that are fighters and the women solidarity, it personally inspires me the most. I'm a member of few feminist associations and the meetings we have. And the support we have from each other, even in like a personal problems, health problems, and the response and the will to help and stay together is something what is the best motivation to keep fighting. Okay. Thanks. Laura, can we return to you? So I think that it could be a good idea to have a wide perspective from different feminism. So it's Joana Reda book. It was published some months ago. And it's fraternity and ecology. I don't know if it is published in English. It is published in Spanish. Yeah. So fraternity and ecology, fraternity and ecology by Joana Reda. Okay. Thank you. Joana. Yeah, I'd really join what Manu Granata said. The inspiration comes from those women who are organizing, are mobilizing, are fighting for our rights day in, day out. Those women who are working, supporting women, survivors of male violence, those women who are supporting women and girls exploited in prostitution to get themselves out of that situation and supporting them in living a dignified life. Those women who are fighting for equal pay, the trade union women who are fighting within their own movements as well to make sure that women's concerns and women's work is respected. The women with disabilities and those who organize for the rights of women with disabilities, those who organize for the rights of migrant women and to make sure that their voices are heard and recognized. And I think we can get that inspiration through, we're privileged in our jobs day to day, but also it's also possible to engage with those through social media, through debates like this, much more than it used to be even 10 years ago. So I think there's such a wealth of inspiration and ideas about how we want to go forward and transform. I wanted to recommend one book, which I've come back to a few times, which is by an American writer called Rebecca Solnit. And she has written some great essays, basically, on issues around the climate and around feminism. And she particularly talks a lot about the power of protest and the reason the need to protest and demand, even when it feels completely hopeless and useless. So her whole message is one of hope and how we draw hope in order to fuel our action and our demand for change and how we can learn from history that sometimes an action that felt or seemed a little bit futile at the time and grows into something that actually transforms the planet. And I think at times like this, we all need a little bit of extra hope. She was also the person who came up with the expression mansplaining, which I think all the women of the world heard that and suddenly felt they'd been heard and seen and understood. So she's called Rebecca Solnit. She's written many fantastic books and she writes also regularly in newspapers and so on. But the book she wrote, I think, in 2003, is called Hope in the Dark. And it's a short book and it's really kind of uplifting when you're living through times of particularly global crisis like this. Okay. Thank you. Well, she's one of my favorites. So I can only join you in this recommendation. We've come to the end of this third session. I really want to thank all three of you. I think it was marvelous to have these different perspectives from different countries, Spain, Poland, and then also this look at European policies. I think it really gave us insight and also concrete proposals to have these more transformative policies. And so if you enjoyed this talk, please consider us supporting us and supporting us for putting together more talks in the coming weeks by making a donation. And the link will be posted now by the Jeff team in the chat. And so already for next week, we have another great session planned. It's about the future of our food system, the situation of our agriculture at this time, and as key speaker, we have Olivier the Schütter. So please, if you appreciated this session, can you make a donation and join us again next week, Wednesday at two o'clock. Thank you very much.