(Brussels) Gender equality remains a distant goal towards which the European Union is moving “at a snail’s pace”. Indeed, the EU’s Gender Equality Index score is currently 67.4 out of 100, having increased by only 5.4 points since 2005 (+1.2 points since 2015). This is according to the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) that presented the Gender Equality Index 2019 at a press conference in Brussels today. The EU is closer to achieving gender equality in the domains of health (88.1 points) and money (80.4 points). Deep inequalities persist in the domain of power (51.9 points), although it is this domain that has improved the most since 2005 (+13 points). Among Member States, Sweden (83.6 points) and Denmark (77.5 points) are the closest to reaching the goal. While Greece (51.2 points) and Hungary (51.9 points) have the longest way to go. Italy got an average score of 63 points for the 7 indicators used (health, work, money, power, violence, time, knowledge). The distribution of power is the area in which Italy has made the most progress: the current score (47.6 points) represents an improvement of +31,5 compared to 2005. The Index 2019 comes with a study on work-life balance. It is available on eige.europa.eu/ with interactive charts by country and area.