Kolumni European Voice: More women needed for Commission posts 27.3.2009
The celebration of International Women’s Day prompts us to observe that the current college of European Commissioners (with a little over a third of female Commissioners) does not exactly shine in terms of gender balance, although it has come a very long way since the early nineties. We believe that a further step is needed, drawing on the model of the European Court of Human Rights.
Judges at this court are elected from a shortlist of three candidates put forward by governments. Only lists containing at least one candidate from the under-represented sex on the court (currently women) will be considered. Similar principles were incorporated in the law of gender equality adopted a few years ago by Denmark - and there is now a proposal to extend this law: vacancies on public boards and committees will have to remain open until at least one female candidate is included in the shortlist. We have also seen comparable initiatives concerning board diversity in Norway and Sweden.
We urge EU Member States to adopt a similar principle when proposing candidates for the next European Commission. No Member State can claim not to have a single woman in its country which would be qualified for the post of European Commissioner. In fact, in many cases, the opposite is probably true – it is a well-known fact that women are often not nominated for such posts because they cannot (or choose not) to take advantage of the “old boys’ network”.
More than fifty years after the entry into force of the Treaty of Rome, which already enshrined the principle of gender equality, it can still be a shock to see how few women appear on the “family photo” of Commissioners. We would like to point out that this call for action is not only addressed to women. It is in all our interests that women are properly represented in politics. A recent Eurobarometer poll found that 77% of European citizens wanted to see more women in decision-making. This is in fact about democratic representation, something we can all agree is extremely important - or do we?
Anneli Jäätteenmäki MEP (ALDE)
Vice-Chairwoman of Constitutional Affairs Committee
Karin Riis-Jørgensen MEP (ALDE)
Vice-President of the ALDE Group
Diana Wallis MEP (ALDE)
Vice-President of the European Parliament
