Study examines issues relating to gender and trade
Dr Eugenia Caracciolo di Torella from the Leicester Law School was asked by the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) to write a research paper on the application of the principle of sex equality outside the workplace.
She has examined the impact of Directive 2004/113 that applies the principle of non-discrimination on the grounds of sex in the access to and supply of goods and services. The research paper was presented to the European Parliament FEMM Committee on 12 July and fed into a debate leading to the Parliament’s report on the issue.
In her research, co-authored with Bridgette MacLellan from the University of Canterbury, NZ, Dr Caracciolo takes stock of how, after more than a decade, the Directive has been implemented and to what extent it has affected the EU and the Member States’ sex equality framework.
The study probes whether it has deepened or improved the application of the principle of sex equality across the Member States.
Dr Caracciolo argues there are specific areas that were not contemplated at the time of drafting the Directive but now need to be addressed: collaborative economy being the most important example.Â
The research paper makes two main suggestions: first, the European Commission should apply the principle of sex equality when regulating the collaborative economy and second it calls for a new comprehensive report by the European Equality Law Network of experts on the implementation of Directive 2004/113/EC.
Listen to an interview with Dr Eugenia Caracciolo di Torella from the Leicester Law School here: