Gender discrimination in European Labour Law

Emergence of the issue of gender discrimination in European employment and social policy occurs in three stages. The first stage started with the introduction of the principle of equal pay for male and female workers for equal work in Rome Treaty with the aim of equalizing the social costs of production. This approach that had been developed within the narrow limits of the principle of equal treatment was replaced in time with positive discrimination measures to be taken for the underrepresented sex in the labour market and with the equal opportunities that forms the second stage. Currently, the last stage of the European employment and social policy includes the implementation of the principle of equal treatment between men and women in all activities of the Union by means of gender mainstreaming.Gender equality in European Law and European Court of Justice case law passed through a transformation that is parallel to the one in social policy. In that context gender equality has started to be perceived as a fundamental right beyond its economic and social aims and to be implemented outside the area of labour market.Transformation that the EU?s been passing through derives indeed from the economic needs brought by the global economic competition which the EU faces. The EU within the globalization process both has to close the gap in its labour market caused by the ageing population increasing rapidly and to provide an increase of birth rates at the meanwhile. The EU aims to increase the employment rate of women and the production that will enhance its economic competitiveness, by means of integrating women in labour market through legislating in gender equality area. Therefore the EU is still not that far from keeping its initial goal of economic competition and integration it provided in Rome Treaty of 1957 despite the changes it has been facing in 2010.