ABSTRACT
The original treaty establishing the European Economic Community, signed in Rome in March 1957, contained Article 119, which committed each Member State to the principle of ‘equal remuneration for the same work as between male and female workers’. This was undoubtedly a far-reaching principle to have adopted in the 1950s, although the motivation may have been more commercially based than rooted in any human rights agenda. If one country had a policy of equal pay for men and women, then that might put that country at a competitive disadvantage compared to another country that did not have such a policy.
