Stuck with unequal representation in the five years to come (c) abbyladybug on Flickr

Next week the newly elected MEPs will flock to Strasbourg for the inaugural session of the Parliament. Among them approximately 35% female Members. A slight increase compared to the previous legislature (until recently Parliament had 31% female MEPs) but way too little to be able to speak of an equal representation, after all 52% of  EU’s inhabitants is female. How will this make them feel?

Commission Vice-President Margot Wallström wrote on her blog : “Elections are about representation and if voters don’t see themselves reflected in who represents them, then they will be seen as distant.”

What lessons can be learned? Countries who did worst and will be sending less than 30% female MEPs to Strasbourg are Malta (male Members only), Czech republic (18% female Members), Poland (22%), Ireland, Italy and Lithuania (all 25%) and Slovenia (29%).

Women need to be like G.I. Jane

Consensus between my Czech, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish and Slovene colleagues is that politics are traditionally dominated by men in their country, difficult for women to get in. According to my Polish colleague women need to be “like G.I. Jane“. He adds that these bad gender results may also be due to the right and centre-right being the biggest parties in his country and they are “not champions in equal treatment”. My Czech colleague thinks many people in his country would like to have more women in politics like in Scandinavian countries but in order to vote for a woman you also need women high enough on the voting lists….

“The women on the list were highly qualified for the job…..!” says my Maltese colleague about the female candidates in her country. In Malta there is the situation that the candidates on the voting lists appear by alphabetical order, although it is by proportional representation and single transferable vote. Nevertheless if people do not know who to give their second, third preference etc it is advantageous to be higher up in the list. That is why the second person and third persons on the both EPP and PES lists happened to be men and the women were further down in the list due to their surnames.

But for future elections Maltese women have a big advantage men do not have: they can change their name! So if you are a Maltese woman and you want to go into European politics and you are not married yet: try to find a decent guy called Abela (preferably) Attard, Borġ or Buttiġieġ to increase your changes of being elected.

My Slovene colleague says having two female MEPs among the seven Slovenes needs to be interpreted as  ”super”, given the participation of women in politics in her country. Finally our Italian photographer explains that Silvio Berlusconi was confronted with too little public support regarding the number of women he wanted to place on the voting lists.

Silvio Berlusconi was confronted with too little public support.

Most Nordic countries did well: Finland (62%), Sweden 56%), Estonia (50%). and Denmark (46%). I asked my Scandinavian colleagues how come. “It’s natural” says my Swedish colleague. If only Iceland and Norway would join the EU……

Other countries with more than 40% female representatives are the Netherlands (48%), Bulgaria (47%), and France (44%).  In the Netherlands there is a tradition of women voting for women. Dutch female social-democrat Judith Merkies was 4th on the voting list but still will be in the three-person team of Dutch social-democrats thanks to preferential votes.

My Bulgarian colleague thinks that the good result for Bulgaria may be thanks to many very good and well-known female candidates on the voting lists (e.g. Commissioner Meglena Kuneva). She also mentions the communist tradition of women playing equal roles in society and occupying higher posts. Perhaps, but how come some other former communist countries did so badly then?

As for France since the introduction in 2000 of the loi sur la parité, there needs to be equal representation between men and women on the voting lists. The result is there with 44% female MEPs. According to my French colleague, often the even numbers on the voting lists are reserved for women and the odd numbers for men: hence no real equal representation but in any case legislation that deserves to be followed by other countries.

So here we are, stuck with this unequal situation. Is there anything that still can be done? Yes,  Wallström writes: “Now we need to focus our efforts on ensuring parity in the European Commission and for top jobs within the European parliament!”

To be continued….