What a week! It’s not often that things move so fast… but with today’s decision by the Dutch cabinet to nominate Neelie Kroes for a second term, and the earlier nomination of Connie Hedegaard there are currently 9 female nominees. Since the low point last week – 3 nominees – the 6 of the subsequent 7 nominations have all been women. So far the 9 are Jeleva, Vassiliou, Hedegaard, Danamaki, Geoghegan-Quinn, Reding, Kroes, Malmström, Ashton. Female candidates nominated so far are denoted by the small nominated logo displayed on the list of Female Commissioners.
So the aim of the campaign has been achieved!
OK, we don’t know how much our little web campaign helped. Perhaps we were pushing at an open door. But all the fuss made around the gender question and the top jobs undoubtedly played a role, and we’re happy to have done a little bit towards that aim.
The campaign is making progress. More than 700 have signed the petition and our Facebook fans amount to 1600!
Three countries left to nominate their candidates: Denmark, Malta and Netherlands.
Out of the 24 already nominated 7 are women: Cathrine Ashton (UK), Viviane Redding (Luxemburg), Cecilia Malmström (Sweden), Rumiana Jeleva (Bulgaria), Androulla Vassilliou (Cyprus), Maria Danamaki (Greece), Máire Georghegan-Quinn (Ireland).
The European Women’s Lobby (now a supporter of our campaign) organised a protest in Brussels today. You can see the photos of the event on Flickr.
The Parliament also reports that a cross-party group of MEPs is urging Mary Robinson to reconsider rejecting the idea to become President of the European Council. Vaira Vike Freiberga’s name remains in the runing for that post.
Ireland has today followed Sweden and has nominated a female Commissioner, former Fianna Fail Minister and Member of the Court of Auditors Máire Geoghegan-Quinn. More about Máire can be found here.
So we have 5 female nominees so far: Geoghegan-Quinn, Malmström, Jeleva, Vassiliou and Reding. So 4 or more to go!
Spanish daily El Mundo has an article about Gender Balanced Commission on its website, with a screenshot of the site. The article entitled “Lucha por el número de mujeres en la futura Comisión” can be read here, and the Google Translation is here.
