[Brussels, 5 September 2014] Today future European Commission (EC) President Juncker published the full list of commissioner-candidates.
While the European Women’s Lobby (EWL) welcomes the fact that during the past weeks the number of proposed female Commissioners by the Member States increased from a shameful 4 to 9, the largest umbrella organisation of women’s associations in the European Union still believes that a stagnation in the numbers of women Commissioner is unacceptable for women across the EU. At this snail’s pace, European women will have to wait another half of a century and won’t even live to see parity.
Even the “Ten Or More” mark is not reached, as some former Commissioners, such as Neelie Kroes, asked for. The composition of the EC is clearly not a mirror of European society, of which more than half of the population is female and much more diverse than the current proposed Commissioners.
Moreover, there are still (too) many member states which have never appointed a woman as a Commissioner, namely Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Malta, Portugal and Slovakia.
We call on these members states to fully implement the core values of the EU, namely to ensure gender equality. Therefore, we demand that these states get rid of their blind spot when it comes to women politicians and to appoint them to decision-making positions at EU level.
Furthermore, The EWL, urgently calls on the future president to appoint a European Commissioner for women’s rights and gender equality to show that the EC has landed in the 21st century.
We call on the European Parliament, directly elected by the citizens of Europe, to carefully consider whether the equal representation of women and men is met with the current proposal of the College of the EC.
Women hold up half of the sky but the clouds continue to cover the horizon.
Last week we said #notmyEU, now we say #notenough.
The women of team Juncker.
- Italy – Federica Mogherini –
- Poland – Elżbieta Bieńkowska
- Slovenia – Alenka Bratušek,
- Sweden – Cecilia Malmström
- Bulgaria – Kristalina Georgieva
- Denmark – Margrethe Vetager
- Czech Republic- Věra Jourová
- Romania – Corina Creţu
- Belgium – Marianne Thyssen
