Gender Balanced Commission

Goal achieved – 9 of the 27 nominees are women

Jon Worth — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:26:15 +0000

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.

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.

So we’re up to 5… 4 (or more) to go!

Jon Worth — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:35:10 +0000

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!

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.

Cecilia Malmström confirmed as Sweden’s nominee

Jon Worth — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:04:41 +0000

Former MEP and current Europe Minister Cecilia Malmström has been confirmed as Sweden’s nominee to the European Commission. You can find out more about her here. The news was confirmed in a Tweet from @K_Lindahl of the Swedish Presidency. More from European Voice.

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!