Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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Social policy ° Men and women workers ° Access to employment and working conditions ° Equal treatment ° Derogations ° Measures to promote equality of opportunity between men and women ° Scope ° National provision automatically favouring equally-qualified women competing with men for promotion in cases where women are under-represented ° Not permissible

(Council Directive 76/207, Art. 2(1) and (4))

Summary

Article 2(1) and (4) of Council Directive 76/207 on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women as regards access to employment, vocational training and promotion, and working conditions precludes national rules which, where candidates of different sexes shortlisted for promotion are equally qualified, automatically give priority to women in sectors where they are under-represented, under-representation being deemed to exist when women do not make up at least half of the staff in the individual pay brackets in the relevant personnel group or in the function levels provided for in the organization chart.

Article 2(4) of that directive, which must be interpreted strictly and which provides that the directive is to be without prejudice to measures to promote equal opportunity for men and women, in particular by removing existing inequalities which affect women' s opportunities, is specifically and exclusively designed to allow measures which, although apparently giving rise to discrimination on grounds of sex, are in fact intended to eliminate or reduce actual instances of inequality between men and women which may exist in the reality of social life. It thus permits national measures relating to access to employment, including promotion, which give a specific advantage to women with a view to improving their ability to compete on the labour market and to pursue a career on an equal footing with men. A national rule which guarantees women absolute and unconditional priority for appointment or promotion is not a measure of that kind, since it goes beyond promoting equal opportunities and substitutes for it the result ° equality of representation ° which is only to be arrived at by providing such equality.