(Photo: Kenia/flick)

by Ségolène Pruvot

After the nomination of the commissionners, a satisfaction feeling may have filled European government leaders and the President of the future European Commission. At least this bad moment is over, there are 1/3 women in the next European Commission, now let’s work….

It would be easy but dangerous to consider this as a satisfying achievement in itself.

Somehow the equation 1/3 women = equality still seems suspicious. To unveil the main limits of such a calculation, let’s proceed step by step, and ask a few simple questions…

First of all: There is then 1/3 of women in the new EU commission. Great, but why not half? Who decided that 1/3 is an acceptable number? On which criteria?

Second: 1/3 of women in the new EU commission. Great, but who gets the most ‘influential’ and powerful positions?
By ‘most influentiaI’, I mean these positions that are considered influential because they are attached to considerable powers at the European level, such as competition and economic affairs , trade, internal market and services for instance.

Once the ‘quota’ of women had been secured, the discussion quickly and automatically turned to the distribution of roles within the commission. It is most likely than the gender approach has been relegated to the last consideration behind negotiations between national states.
Now the list of commissioners is known, three of the women are vice-president (on a total of six vice-presidents) and some of them will occupy positions recognized as important, such as Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, but none of the women did get the most regarded positions in the commission. Catherine Ashton counted outside of course because she was in the ‘EU top jobs’ quota (President of the Commission, President of the Council, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security)

Third: Why was it so difficult to get women nominated?
The fact that a strong mobilisation had to take place once again sheds light on how unequal access to political space generally remains in EU Member States all around Europe. Additionally, pressure and movements mostly came from women, although supported by their men-counterparts: the women MEPs have had to constitute a cross-parties movement and to demonstrate to be heard. Women Commissioners have had to publish letters in influential newspapers, etc…It is not surprising but it remains disturbing that such ‘peer-solidarity’ is still needed among women to get their legitimate requests considered and heard by national state leaders and male politicians in general.

Answer to the question: 1/3 women in the commission does not equal Gender Equality in Europe.

The application of quotas – the statistical approach – is useful and needed today, because otherwise – we have once again witnessed it -the situation remains extremely unequal. However it is only a short-term mean to avoid reproduction of extreme inequality situations, but it does not ensure the creation of a more equal and more democratic political space.

So what are the conditions for a more equal Europe?

1) Changing the way the designation process of the commission functions because the ‘secret’ designation process of the commissioners is one of the first obstacles to the creation of a more democratic political space.

The designation of the commissioners is currently left in the hands of member states leaders, each of which decides in secret and on unclear criteria who its national candidate is. The allocation of the positions among these nationally designated commissioners is decided at the end of a (still secret) negotiation process between the same member states, in which the President of the commission also has a say. This type of process encourages the choice of one’s peer (often a middle aged white man) and not openness to new political personalities.
It is also somehow surprising that the president of the commission, the institution representative of European interests (including gender equality), cannot choose its team. Therefore, instead of for instance asking each country to nominate two candidates -a man and a woman – one should call for a more transparent selection process. If the composition of the European commission was decided through a more democratic process, the commission would be also more representative of the European people and more accountable to the institution elected by European citizens, the European Parliament.

European political groupings could propose candidates for commissioner positions. By doing that they would be responsible for proposing candidates that are representative of openness and of European people’s interests, and citizens can choose to vote or not for these parties. One could also hope that the President of the commission would freely choose a team among these candidates and compose a team, that would be more equal and less linked to the interests of national countries prime ministers, which national states leaders would then have to approve.

2) Opening-up of the political space to new groups and new people requires a continuous and more profound effort of all actors to make the situation change. Building a gender equal political space would require ambitious objectives to be set to and by ‘safeguarding’ bodies, such as the new commissioner for Justice and Fundamental Rights (Viviane Reding), the women and gender equality committee at the European Parliament or the European institute for Gender Equality. Their responsibility would then be to screen new policies and legislation to ensure that their impacts are not contrary to gender equality and to propose new measures and actions to ensure that the participation of all to the political space is simply made possible

Building a gender equal Europe may well rely on its ability to promote and facilitate equal share of family burden, equal salaries and to fight against all forms of gender discriminations, with its own and different means than the ones exiting at the national state level.