44. Draws attention once again to the fact there is still a gender pay gap that has hardly been reduced in recent years; stresses that the gender pay gap arises from insufficient participation of women in the labour market, vertical and horizontal segregation, and the fact that sectors where women are over-represented often have lower wages; calls on the Commission to monitor the implementation of Directive 2006/54/EU and to present specific measures which take into account structural wage differences, both legislative and non-legislative, so as to ensure wage transparency and apply sanctions, thereby reducing the gender pay gap, and t ...[+++]o submit an annual progress report on this matter; encourages the Member States to recognise the potential of the latest public procurement directive as a tool to promote and enhance gender mainstreaming policy by considering setting requirements based on the existing national legislation on equal treatment and gender equality as prerequisites for public procurement contracts where applicable; calls on the Commission and the Member States to examine whether social clauses in public procurement might be used as a potential tool to enhance social inclusion policies; acknowledges that EU legislation on competition must be complied with in developing this idea;

Summary code: Environment and climate change / Air pollution / Land motor vehicles / Road vehicles Internal market / Single Market for Goods / Motor vehicles / Technical harmonisation for motor vehicles / Technical harmonisation in the internal market Internal market / Single Market for Goods / Motor vehicles / Interactions between the automobile industry and specific policies / Interaction with environmental policy

1. Welcomes the publication of the Commission communication entitled 'Implementing the Community Lisbon programme: Social services of general interest in the European Union' (COM(2006)0177), which had already been signalled in the White Paper on services of general interest (COM(2004)0374), and which arises from the exclusion of social services from the scope of the amended proposal for a directive on services in the internal market, in connection with which the Council’s common position was approved at second reading by the European Parliament; welcomes the Commission's endeavours to conduct a consultation process with the Member State ...[+++]s and with all the sectors involved, aiming to find a balance between the special characteristics of these services, which sometimes make them difficult to define in general terms, and the application of the principles of transparency, free competition and non-discrimination, which have mandatory force in the EU, and of Community law on the award of public contracts and concessions;

- having regard to the study 'Effects of the proposed Directive on Services in the Internal Market on Tax Collection and Tax Revenue in the EU Member States', a research study by the Austrian Institute of Economics commissioned by the European Parliament's Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the Union, Directorate A – Economic and Scientific Policy (Project No IP/A/ECON/ST/2004-33),

Summary code: Justice, freedom and security / Fight against organised crime / General framework Internal market / Single Market for Goods / Motor vehicles / Interactions between the automobile industry and specific policies / Interaction with the area of justice, freedom and security

4. Endorses the Commission’s view that the decision to establish or maintain a service of general interest is a fundamental responsibility of public authorities at local, regional, national and Community level, pursuant to Article 16 of the EC Treaty, and calls on it not to enact or maintain legislative or regulatory instruments which run counter to this view (concessions, State aids). Asks that the Commission emphasises to the Member States that cost must not be the over-riding criterion when considering tenders for a service of general interest. Services of general interest should not be limited to ‘minimum standards of universal services’. They work best when enab ...[+++]led to meet additional consumer needs through the same social economy structures. Calls on the Commission to ensure that the directives on public procurement comply with the general principles and social objectives of services of general interest. Considers in this connection that social clauses should be included in public invitations to tender;