Gender equality is one of the defining issues of the last few decades, and a measure of quality of a democratic society. European institutions played a significant role in promoting an equal treatment of men and women in the workforce, and gender balance in decision-making. Far from being completely achieved, the full equality of rights and opportunities for men and women still represents a challenge for European governments and societies.

In 1976, the seminal ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Communities Defrenne v Sabena established that the principle of equal pay should have direct effect in the legal order of Member States.

Simone Veil (Nice 1927-Paris 2017) was a French lawyer and politician, Minister of Health and member of the Constitutional Council in France. Survivor of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, she was elected on July 17, 1979 President of the European Parliament, the first to be directly elected.

Ursula Hirschmann (Berlin 1913-Rome 1991) was an activist, militant anti-fascist and supporter of European federalism. She promoted the clandestine circulation of the Ventotene Manifesto during the war and organized the first meeting of the European Federalist Movement in 1943. In the 1970s, she was involved in the launch of the group “Femmes pour l’Europe”. Ursula Hirschmann was married to Altiero Spinelli, whom she first met in Ventotene. Before, she had been married to Eugenio Colorni, who was killed during the war.

"We, the uprooted of Europe who “changed our country more often than our shoes” – as Brecht, representative of the uprooted, stated – we, too, do not have anything else to lose but our chains in a united Europe, and that is the reason why we are federalists."
Ursula Hirschmann, Noi senzapatria, Il Mulino 1993, translated from Italian.