Policy Focus

Ferrero-Waldner backs EU gender equality campaign

The EU’s external affairs commissioner has thrown her weight behind calls for greater female representation in top EU jobs.

Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Benita Ferrero-Waldner said the EU had to "multiply" its efforts on gender equality.

"We are making headway but more needs to be done, in particular in ensuring there is more female representation in senior positions," she said.

She said it was "far from satisfactory" that the 11 EU special representatives promoting EU interests in troubled parts of the world are all men.

"Why? This need not be so," she told a conference, which has recommended the creation of an EU special envoy for women’s rights.

The Austrian official said the initiative merited “serious consideration”, adding, "The commission itself must multiply its efforts to get more women to key positions, for example, as heads of delegation.

"The current situation, in which we have only seven women out of 91 head of delegations, is obviously also far from satisfactory."

She reminded the conference, organised by the Greens in parliament, that she was the first female foreign affairs minister in Austria and the first woman to occupy her current portfolio with the commission.

She also said she always tried to ensure that women accounted for at least half of her personal cabinet, or private staff.

"The problem, unfortunately, is that women often have to do more to climb the career ladder and sometimes they do not even try or dare to do it. They still have to break through the glass ceiling."

Dutch Green MEP Kathalijne Buitenweg, who helped organised the event, called on the EU to "take the initiative" to appoint a special envoy for women’s rights, adding, "Such an appointment can make a difference. This high-ranking diplomat would ensure that women’s rights are effectively taken into account in policymaking.

"She could be able to raise her voice or mediate whenever violence is done to women. She could present proposals to the council and commission and be held accountable by parliament, and could spur governments to live up their millennium goal commitments.

"But first and foremost, she could make sure that Europe has a face and a telephone number for women in the developing world who struggle for the rights of their sisters."

The demand for an envoy comes in the wake of a campaign, recently launched by the Danish EPP deputy Karin Riis-Jorgensen, aimed at ensuring that at least one of the top jobs in the EU institutions, such as president of the commission, is filled by a woman from 2009.