Madeleine Albright, the first US Secretary of State, used to say that there was a special place in hell for women who did not support other women. It does not seem that Ursula von der Leyen will end up there. If the President of the European Commission ends up with the will to form a fully gender-balanced team for her new term, It won't be for not trying. And after the resignation of the Slovenian candidate last Friday, he might even reach his long-standing equilibrium.
The German company is pressing all deadlines, until the presentation, in principle on Wednesday of this week, of its proposal for a college of commissioners. And it has redoubled its efforts (and pressures) to try to balance its future team despite the difficult cards that the Twenty-Seven have dealt it, who have largely ignored his request to send him two proposals, a man and a woman, to be able to form a common executive.
In fact, Von der Leyen herself has stressed in recent days that if she had been satisfied with the first proposals she received, she would have had to work with only four candidates – in addition to herself and Estonian Kaja Kallas, already proposed as the next candidate for EU foreign policy representative – compared to 21 men.
As things stand, there are currently 16 confirmed men, compared to nine women, including the The Spanish Teresa Ribera. There were even 17 male candidates, but Slovenian Tomas Vezel withdrew his candidacy on Friday, after meeting von der Leyen, “due to different positions on the functioning of the future composition of the Commission”, according to Robert's government.
The Slovenian executive, which had reaffirmed its support for the former president of the Court of Auditors the same week, announced that it would announce the new candidacy on Monday. According to the newspaper Deloquoted by the Efe agency, could be a woman, the diplomat Marta Kos.
“All my political life I have fought for women to have access to decision-making and power positions,” von der Leyen told reporters this week. “In my experience, if you don’t ask for something, they don’t give it to you.” “It doesn’t come naturally.” He added that this is why, when inviting member countries to put forward candidates for the post of Commissioner, he explicitly asked that they propose both a man and a woman.
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The problem is that Only Bulgaria listened to him. Although Von der Leyen has not officially announced who she will stay with, she has hinted that it will be with candidate Ekaterina Zaharieva, as she mentioned that at present her team has a “double-digit” number of women. With Zaharieva, her team would now have 10 women: in addition to her for Germany and Kallas for Estonia, Belgium, Croatia, Finland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and Spain have also proposed women as commissioners.
A team that could continue to add women up to 12 commissioners. This figure would even exceed the 40% female presence (11 portfolio holders) set as a barrier to diversity and would thus remain on the limit of total parity.
Von der Leyen “continues to work intensively,” her spokesman Eric Mamer told her team on Friday. Part of the effort is also aimed at getting Malta to change its mind and propose a woman instead of its current candidate, government adviser Glenn Micallef, one of the candidates considered the weakest due to his lack of experience and international recognition.
The Commission President has already won some of these battles: Romania also changed its initial candidate, MEP Victor Negrescu, this week, and finally proposed a woman, also MEP Roxana Minzatu. Another big doubt, Belgium has also decided to bet on a woman, the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hadja Lahbib, even though it could have kept its current Commissioner, Didier Reynders, who was the one who dominated the groups. Slovenia could now follow in their footsteps.
But even though the German made it clear that gender balance, in a Europe where half the population is women, is fundamental and “must be taken seriously”, it is not the only element that must eventually adapt. the complex puzzle which involves forming a team and distributing portfolios.
Geographic balance
Beyond ensuring that candidates are competent – this is the “first criterion”, he stressed – for the position, they must also take into account the geographical and portfolio balance by region, in addition to political affiliation, which is particularly complicated in a school of the future with a strong weight of the European People's Party (EPP), due to the majority of conservative governments of the moment.
Von der Leyen “is finishing organising things, seeing the profile of each of us and how the different families and political priorities fit together”, confirmed the Spanish third vice-president, Teresa Ribera, who met this week in Brussels with those who could be her boss and to whom, according to several European sources, the German could entrust the powerful portfolio of Competition.
Before making the names public, Von der Leyen will explain his project to the European ParliamentThe meeting takes place this Wednesday in front of the leaders of the various political groups of the European Parliament. The problem of parity has been one of the issues that has also been debated internally among the MEPs – who are the ones who have to ratify the names, and can reject some of them – in the coming weeks.
EPP leader Manfred Weber of Germany this week defended his compatriot and fellow student's efforts to achieve gender balance, which he said had become a “symbol” in Europe. “It is clear that he has a difficult task (…) he is working hard on parity, let's give him the opportunity to present his team,” he urged.
Something that at least some of the political groups seem to want to do. Sources in the Social Democrats S&D say they are aware of the extent of Von der Leyen's fight for gender balance, which is a norm for them. Dutchman Bas Eickhout, co-chair of the Greens – a party that strictly respects parity – also acknowledged that the German “is doing everything she can to achieve a better balance”. “Let’s see how far he can go. Then, in Parliament, it will be one of the things we will discuss and act on. But first let’s see what he presents to us and we will see. “We have a role and we will play it,” he promised.
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