The Council took note of the Commission's report (Commission Staff Working Paper: Report on the progress on Equality between Women and Men in 2010) and agreed to submit it to the European Council.
As requested by the European Council in Spring 2003, the Commission has submitted its annual report on equality between women and men.
The report describes recent developments in the field of gender equality in the EU and presents statistics on all areas covered, as well as recent developments in the Member States.
It sets out the state of play in the five priority areas defined in the Commission's strategy for equality between women and men 2010-2015, namely:
The report will also be the basis of the discussions at the forthcoming high level gender dialogue announced by the Commission in its new Equality Strategy, in which the Commission President Barroso, Commission Vice President Reding and representatives of the Trio Presidency, the European Parliament, Social Partners and NGOs are to take part.