Event report

The RRF is a tool designed to support member states in their post Covid-19 recovery, focusing on digitalization, sustainability and inclusiveness to ensure a more resilient Europe in the coming years. With the WISE4Challenges project, S-Com wanted to focus on women’s participation to shed light on how this tool can help reduce social inequalities. For this reason, on 8 September we organised an online debate on Recovery and Resilience facilities. This debate was attended by Members of Parliament and moderated by Rolf Falter from DG Comm of the European Parliament Belgian office who immediately introduced the topic by asking a specific question to the MEPs: are you sure the RRF will reduce the inequalities inside EU member states? And if not, what could be done to change this? The first to respond was Alessandra Moretti (Italian, S&D) In the past months together with S&D group they have proposed to introduce the obligation, for each member state, of preserving at least 37% of the expenses for gender equality. In Italy there is a specific need to improve the childcare services and adult training in all regions. The second intervention was made by Pina Picierno, (Italian, S&D) who reinforced the speech already introduced by Alessandra Moretti by emphasising another very important issue for Italy: the territorial gap. Another huge topic is the rate of unemployed women due to care needs is 35,7% as opposed to the European average of 31,8. This discouraging percentage is partially due to the bad condition of public services for children's healthcare in the south of Italy, where it is also very difficult to affirm that family care is, in fact, a job. A budget of 4.6 billion has been indicated for the improvement of school infrastructures in the south. As a MEP, her task is to make sure that what is written in the national plan is eventually concretely realized. The third speaker was Lina Gálvez Muñoz (Spanish, S&D) who briefly introduced the Spanish national plan. The S&D group is working in the European Parliament to include social conditionality in economic governance, to integrate social scope into the EU semester, as a tool to monitor social progress and make sure that action included in the plans contributes to social objectives. She believes that the green transition will mean many opportunities for economic transformation and will be a chance for many people to benefit economically, but there is also a risk that this process will increase inequalities, she has put this as a central goal in the parliament. Sara Matthieu (Belgian, The Green) then began her speech by focusing on the general social aspects of the NRRF. Some member states have suffered more from the austerity that Europe has imposed in the past: cuts in public health, social benefits, etc. She also believes that making all facilities work can be a turning point for equality. Belgium’s plan includes around €6 billion, was approved by the Commission in June and has put a strong emphasis on green transition and digitalisation, but there is also 26% of resources for social policies. She talks about measures: increasing childcare capacity, strengthen the performance of the education system, especially in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In addition to this, Belgium’s plan includes funds to strengthen health care, as the country, like many others, has been hit hard by the pandemic.Regarding her role in parliament, she believes that MEPs should check that each member state follows the rules. Finally, before concluding the first panel Valentina Zoccali, Secretary General of S-Com explains how the debate on the Recovery and Resilience Facility fits into the Wise4Challenges project. Starting from the beginning of the project there were 4 working groups on: green deal (led by WEP,BE), education and culture (led by Incoma,SP), health (led by University of Pisa,IT), social rights (led by Libera,IT). The activity on RRF is transversal to these 4 tables and led us to analyse the knowledge and needs of the citizens of Belgium, Spain and Italy. After a short break of 15 minutes, the second panel opens with the project partners. The panel will be moderated by Caterina Aiena, member of S-Com. The first working group to speak was the one on the Green Deal managed by WEP and represented by Charlene Lambert and Grazia Rendo. The task of WEP was to collect as much qualitative data and report on women entrepreneurship, women farmers, young women in agriculture and their potential to guide and contribute to the Green Deal and Recovery Program. She then presented data collected from citizens. Then it is the turn of the second working group: Education and Culture, led by INCOMA, represented by Pilar Naranjo Río-Miranda who introduces by introducing Incoma, a training and research centre based in Seville, Spain and then talks about the survey she prepared – as a contribution to the Wise4Challanges project – “the future of Europe: education, gender equality and digital divide”. The aim of the survey was to find out in which aspect they would like to improve education and what they felt was missing during the pandemic, and how the pandemic itself affected the digital transition and gender equality in education. The third working group is dedicated to Health and carried out by the University of Pisa, represented here by Francesca Pecori. The research conducted by UNIPI aims to understand the importance of a gender perspective in medical practice in order to promote a health system that takes into account gender differences. The research was divided into 3 phases: a)Mapping and updated analysis of institutional actions aimed at promoting the development of gender medicine at international and EU level to identify the different approaches adopted in a comparative perspective b)A Focus was devoted to the Italian context. c)A qualitative survey through the administration of questionnaires to the students of the Department of Medicine who attended Professor Rita Biancheri’s “gender and health” course to collect and analyse evaluations, opinions and suggestions. The fourth working group is dedicated to Social Rights and the work is carried out by Libera. Associations, names and numbers against mafias represented by Giulia Baruzzo. For the WISE4Challenges project, Libera focused on Social Rights and Gender Equality by launching a qualitative research on how to improve the future of the EU from a gender perspective articulated in 3 steps: a) They involved many EU networks b) They created a survey on gender equality and presented it in all EU countries. The results will be used to create a “toolkit” to support any future organisation to address gender equality in EU policies. c) Libera will start to build an action plan to present to the European institutions together with the Social Pillar working group. Concluding the fruitful work done, which will be the basis for building the final recommendations to be sent to the institutions, Caterina Aiena presented some conclusions: a)RRF is clearly a gender issue both in an active and passive way b)Women feel abandoned by the state and are still the weakest link in European societies c)Women believe that the RRF should be used as a remedy for past inequalities, through a more powerful welfarism and subsidiarity of the state d)Women demand a better form of redress for economic injustice https://www.scom.eu/2021/08/30/wise4challenges-reducing-inequalities-september-8/ All the conclusions of the project and the recommendations we want to address to the European institutions can be found at this link:https://www.scom.eu/portfolio/w-i-s-e-4all-challenges/ You can download the final publication here: https://www.scom.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/A-gender-oriented-contribution-to-the-future-of-Europe-ok.pdf