Yhteiskirjoitus/European Voice 12.11.2009.

Member states must put forward more female candidates for the European Commission.
Now that the Lisbon treaty has been ratified, member states will spend the coming days finalising who they will send to Brussels as European commissioners. Commission President José Manuel Barroso has already made his position clear, by offering to assign more influential portfolios to those states that put forward female candidates. However, to date, of the 12 candidates who have officially been nominated, just two are women. [:]There is a growing feeling that if the European Parliament does not see more female candidates than currently sit in Barroso’s outgoing Commission (eight), it will reject the whole Commission and ask for more female candidates. We call on those member states that have yet to nominate a commissioner to propose a woman, to show that the EU institutions can be representative of Europe’s population as a whole, and for Barroso to honour his commitments to gender balance in the Commission.

From:

Anneli Jäätteenmäki MEP

Diana Wallis MEP

Izaskun Bilbao Barandica MEP

Lena Ek MEP

Rebecca Harms MEP

Heidi Hautala MEP

Silvana Koch Mehrin MEP

Siiri Oviir MEP

Sirpa Pietikäinen MEP

Eva-Britt Svenss MEP