Gender Balanced Commission » News

Out of 24 nominees 7 are women

maria — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:25:15 +0000

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).

Wednesday’s news: politicians push for Mary Robinson, and Women’s Lobby organises a demo

Jon Worth — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:19:48 +0000

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.

El Mundo features our campaign

Jon Worth — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:27:06 +0000

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.

La Stampa – Mandateci altre donne

Jon Worth — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:47:11 +0000

La Stampa’s Brussels correspondent Marko Zatterin has written a blog entry in Italian entitled “Mandateci altre donne” – “Send us more women”. You can read the article here, and the Google translation is here.

We’re on the website of European Voice

Jon Worth — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:00:50 +0000

European Voice have written an article on their website about our initiative – “Petition calls for more female commissioners”. I spoke to one of their journalists and they have also received some quotes from MEPs Emilie Turunen (online chat with her later via Facebook) and Diana Wallis.

Austrian newspaper Der Standard features a series of articles on EU and gender

Jon Worth — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:43:39 +0000

Austrian daily Der Standard has 3 articles about EU and gender issues for the top jobs. Here are the links to the articles:

Meine Traumfrauen für die EU-Präsidentschaft (Google translation)
Frauen an die EU-Spitze? Das wäre schön! (Google translation)
Aufstand der Frauen wegen EU-Topjobs (Google translation)

Now all we need are some more articles in the Brussels press (this was a good start), and ideally the Financial Times to keep up the pressure on the EP…

The EU lacks women to occupy strategic positions: we disagree

Jon Worth — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:54:15 +0000

A matter of hours before the launch of this website a story appeared on the website of the Le Monde entitled “L’Union européenne manque de femmes pour occuper les fonctions stratégiques“. We would like to disagree! As our research has shown there are plenty of very viable female candidates for the top jobs in the European Commission. Even beyond that – for President of the European Council and High Representative – there are female options. Journalists need to open their eyes too!

Malmström and Stubb on the record about gender

Jon Worth — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:13:01 +0000

As reported by AP:

Malmstrom said she was disappointed “too few” women had been nominated so far.

“I think it would look a little bit silly were we not able to elect or choose a female for one of the top posts,” said Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb.

Jean Quatremer – will the government of the EU resemble the government of Saudi Arabia?

Jon Worth — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:00:56 +0000

Prolific EU blogger and Libération journalist has written an analysis of the gender situation when it comes to putting together a top team for the European Commission. His fear: the gender balance could be so bad that the EU is going to somehow resemble Saudi Arabia. You can read his post here, and in Google Translation here.

FT: The right man in the right job is often a woman

Jon Worth — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:40:58 +0000

Margot Wallström, Diana Wallis and Neelie Kroes have written an article in today’s FT about gender matters for the EU’s top jobs entitled “The right man in the right job is often a woman” – you can read the entire article here.