Call for quotas to address lack of women in Union’s highest posts

By Martin Banks

Date: 27/05/04

AN EU staff union says quotas should be introduced after it emerged that only 15% of the three main institutions' top jobs are occupied by women.

Despite claiming a dramatic recent improvement in gender balance among its workforce, just four of the European Commission's 60 directors-general (DG) and deputy DGs are women.

Of its 224 directors, or equivalent, only 35 are female.

The situation at the Council of Ministers is no better: of ten DGs, only one is a woman, Kerstin Niblaeus (environment and consumer protection), while just six of its 30 directors are female.

The European Parliament, meanwhile, has nine DGs but only one woman, Francesca Ratti (DG Communication), while seven of its 30 directors are female.

It means that of the 363 DGs, deputy DGs and directors employed by the three main institutions, only 54 - or 15% - are women.

That prompted the R&D union, which represents 30% of Commission staff, to call for the introduction of quotas to enable women to fill more senior posts.

"It is about time the European Commission started practising what it preaches," its spokeswoman, Olga Profili, said.

"The Commission says a lot about equal opportunities but these figures show that much of it is just hot air.

"Many women deliberately do not apply for senior Commission jobs because they know they are unlikely to get them. A system of quotas might change this and create a fairer gender balance."

The Commission's "top" women are: Odile Quintin (DG employment and social affairs); Catherine Day (DG environment); Jaana Husu-Kallio (deputy DG at health and consumer protection) and Edith Kitzmantel (head of Paymaster's Office).

Eric Mamer, spokesman for Neil Kinnock, the commissioner responsible for staff reforms, defended the Commission's record, saying: "There has been a dramatic increase in the number of women in middle management posts.

"This has risen from 14% in 1995 to 23.5%."

Parliament's Secretary- General Julian Priestley admitted that "it's a poor record but one which is beginning to improve and, long-term, the prospects are good".

In a recent shake-up of top jobs, the Parliament appointed eight directors to new posts but only one woman: Christine Verger, who leaves her job as secretary-general with the Party of European Socialists in July to become director of services for the assembly's president.

Alan Hick, of Union Syndicale, the biggest EU staff union, insists, however, that the gender balance in the Union's higher echelons is improving.

"The Commission's staff regulations provide plenty of opportunities, with maternity leave and part-time working, to encourage women."