PES Women honours outgoing feminist Commissioner Helena Dalli

At this Friday’s Statutory meeting, PES Women honoured outgoing Commissioner Helena Dalli for her commitment and tireless work as the first Equality Commissioner. PES Women have strongly supported Commissioner Dalli’s efforts throughout her tenure. During her mandate, she has consistently striven towards promoting equality, and working to make gender parity a reality in the European Union, demonstrating real political will and engagement. Together with our progressive MEPs in the European Parliament, these efforts have led to considerable achievements that our social-democratic, feminist, political family can be proud of: from the first Gender Equality Strategy to the first-ever EU law focusing on combatting violence against women.

PES Women and feminist leaders from our political family are committed to preserving the legacy of Helena Dalli and continuing to strive for more during the new mandate.
Progressive leaders, such as Iratxe Garcia, S&D Group President, MEP Marc Angel, MEP Evelyn Regner, MEP Heléne Fritzon, S&D Coordinator in FEMM Committee Joanna Scheuring Wielgus, MEP Maria Noichl, but also PES Women Statutory members commended the work of Helena Dalli.

Today’s PES Women statutory meeting focussed on gender developments and the backlash against women’s rights in our respective countries. Members reflected upon the future tasks and heard some insights from MEP Evelyn Regner on S&D’s work at the European Parliament, as the next five years are expected to be highly challenging.
Joanna Scheuring Wielgus, the S&D Coordinator in the FEMM Committee in the European Parliament, spoke about this week’s plenary in Strasbourg where a debate on abortion rights in Poland took place following the findings of the CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women).