Every five years, a new European Commission (EC), consisting of 28 Commissioners (one from each EU country), is elected. The current Commission’s term, presided by José Manuel Barroso from Portugal, is running until the 31st of October 2014, after which it will be time for a new term headed by Jean-Claude Juncker from Luxembourg. The President is nominated by the European Council and elected by the European Parliament, but the Commissioners will be chosen by the President, although the Parliament has to approve his choices. Suggestions for these candidates are made by the Governments of the Member States, after which Juncker can reject or accept them.
Soon after his election, Jean-Claude Juncker expressed his concerns about the fact that rumors about potential Commissioners were almost all about men. Over the past ten years around one-third of the European Commissioners have been women, largely because Barroso insisted on this, but the fear rose that this would change this year. Therefore, he urged the national governments of Member States to bring more women forward, promising to reward those that do so with a big portfolio or vice-presidency, since he “doesn’t believe that a Commission with only two or three women would be credible or legitimate”.
One day later, the current female Commissioners sent a letter to Juncker, supporting his “call for the Member States to support more women as new Commissioners”. In this letter, they noted that it had become through research that large organisations perform better with a diverse leadership, which corresponds with their own experiences. Next to this, they expressed the feeling that the European Commission was “committed to making continual progress towards gender equality.” They too therefore urge the Member States to nominate at least ten female Commissioners, because “you [Juncker, red.] deserve a flying start – and with ten or more female Commissioners in your team you will get it.”
With this letter, the #TenOrMore/#10ormore campaign was started, urging the Member States to give Juncker this flying start by nominating at least ten female Commissioners. One of the contributors to this campaign is Neelie Kroes, who is still a Commissioner at the moment. Through different tweets, she asked attention for the lack of female nominations, and expressed her doubts about the many nominations of former Prime Ministers. As she explains: “Former Prime Ministers make up 0,0000001% of the European Union population, yet more of them are nominated as European Commissioners than the 51% of women!”
With small success, because the campaign lead to different suggestions for female Commissioners, sometimes even done by the national newspapers, supporting the call for more women in the European Commission. However, the definite decision was up to the national governments, who so far have officially nominated three women, namely Véra Jourová for Czech, Federica Mogherini for Italy and Cecilia Malström for Sweden. Next to this, it was announced on the 6th of August that Bulgaria had nominated another female Commissioner: Kristalina Georgieva. Slovenia did not nominate one candidate but a list of proposals, on which also two female candidates were named.
Not all countries have officially announced their nomination, but since there are only five countries left, the new European Commission will have a maximum of eight female Commissioners. However, the European Parliament, who has to approve or reject the new team in October, has threatened to reject a European Commission with less than ten women, putting pressure on the Governments of the Member States to come forward with female candidates, who there should be enough of as the different suggestions so far have shown.
Written by Svenja van der Tol, AEGEE-Nijmegen