I RECENTLY had the huge honour of co-chairing the 1998 Global Summit of Women, a biennial event bringing together prominent women from politics and business all over the world.

This year's theme was Women and the Global Market, a grand title recognising a simple fact.

Women are growing in significance as wage earners, business leaders, policy makers and consumers which means there are hard nosed commercial reasons for companies to take more notice of our needs and views and hard nosed electoral reasons for politicians to do likewise.

Much has been made of the number of new women MPs last May, but progress in Europe has often been overlooked. Nearly 29 per cent of MEPs are women and in my own group women comprise 50 per cent of the ruling executive.

Not only am I the first woman to lead the largest group in the European Parliament but I also have a woman as group treasurer. With our hands on the financial as well as political levers women really are in the driving seat.

Our job as politicians is about creating a better future. Women care with a passion about the future -- perhaps because of our biological function in producing it.

As a mother I want to create a dynamic, prosperous and sustainable future for my children, your children and our neighbours' children.

This is the time of year when parliaments go into recess. For the House of Commons that lasts until halfway through October, but in Europe we stop only for a month and the cycle of parliamentary sessions will begin again in September. I hope you have a good summer and I look forward to meeting some of you when I am out and about in the constituency.

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Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.