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Push for Gender Equality in E.U.’s Top Roles Looks Set to Fall Short
The European Union has presented itself as a champion for promoting gender equality, adopting rules requiring companies to increase the number of women on their boards and pushing employers to address the gender pay gap.
So when Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, asked recently for member countries to nominate both male and female candidates for leadership positions within the 27-member bloc’s executive arm, it was seen as an attempt to apply that vision to its own halls. The problem is, few have listened.
Only five countries — Sweden, Finland, Spain, Portugal and Croatia — have put forward female candidates ahead of a Friday deadline. Seventeen countries have nominated only men for their commissioner posts. (Three countries have yet to submit names.) Each country gets one leadership slot.
It’s possible that some countries could still change their nominees ahead of the deadline. But the current slate of nominees suggests that the European Commission’s leadership team will likely be composed mostly of men for the next five years — and analysts said the public snub of Ms. von der Leyen’s request signals her leadership could be weakened.
“It’s not a small thing, asking for gender balance and clearly not getting it,” said a senior European official. “It’s not just one, two countries.” Speaking on condition of anonymity because the process was ongoing, the official said that indicated Ms. von der Leyen’s relations with member states would be more difficult.
Ms. von der Leyen, a conservative German politician, secured a second five-year term in a vote last month.
“National political leaders are certainly less willing, this time around, to adhere to this type of request,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. He said that Ms. von der Leyen was able to get more cooperation in her first term because the E.U. was dealing with Covid and other crises, but will likely now need to become a more traditional “wheeling-and-dealing commission president.”
The commission’s leadership team creates and implements policies affecting 450 million European citizens.
“The E.U. as an international organization and as a political body often makes claims to being a trailblazer in the area of gender equality,” said Roberta Guerrina, a professor and researcher of E.U. gender politics at Bristol University. “Therefore, walking the talk becomes really important, and having equal representation on decision-making bodies is the starting point.”
Two of the top 27 positions in the European Commission have already been filled and are held by women: Ms. von der Leyen, the president, and Kaja Kallas, the bloc’s top diplomat and a former prime minister of Estonia.
For the rest of the leadership roles, the remaining 25 member states nominate officials to serve as commissioners, who act much like national ministers and oversee areas like health, economy or trade for the bloc. From those nominees, Ms. von der Leyen then drafts a list of candidate commissioners, one for each member country. The proposed appointments require approval from the European Parliament.
When Ms. von der Leyen first became European Commission president five years ago, she made the same request for E.U. capitals to nominate a man and a woman for commission posts. She ended up forming the most gender-equal group of leaders in the bloc’s history, with 12 female commissioners and 14 male commissioners.
“What she’s trying to do with her request this time around is to actually institutionalize that process,” Dr. Guerrina said. “If you just expect employers or governments to just act on their own accord based on best practice, progress is going to be incredibly, incredibly slow.”
Women are underrepresented within E.U. institutions, but significant progress has been made in recent decades. Two of the bloc’s three top bodies are led by women — Ms. von der Leyen and Roberta Metsola, head of the European Parliament.
It’s difficult to say with certainty why so many countries have ignored Ms. von der Leyen’s request.
Simon Harris, Ireland’s head of government, said last month that he takes gender equality “seriously” but that his country was only nominating Michael McGrath, its former finance minister, because he was the best candidate. Mr. Harris said he was not willing to nominate a woman to compete against Mr. McGrath in the selection process.
Since there is no legal requirement for countries to submit both a male and a female candidate, Ms. von der Leyen’s options to boost female representation are limited. Politico reported on Wednesday that she was making a last-ditch effort to persuade some countries to submit alternate nominees. A European Commission spokesman declined to comment on the process, saying it was ongoing.
Gender equality researchers say female representation within the E.U.’s top echelons is critical so that policies are crafted in ways that reflect the needs and challenges that women face. It’s particularly important now, said Georgie Bradley, a spokeswoman for the European Institute for Gender Equality.
The percentage of female parliamentarians in the legislative term that began in July fell to 38.7 percent, the first ever decrease, compared to the last five-year term, when more than 42 percent of the 720 members of the European Parliament were women, according to an analysis that the agency will publish next month.
“There is a slip,” Ms. Bradley said, therefore you must “always keep gender equality in mind.”
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