URSULA VON DER Leyen is set to miss her aim for gender balance within the European Commission as countries such as Ireland have only put forward a male nominee.
Von der Leyen was re-elected for a second five-year term as European Commission president last month and said that she expected leaders to put forward a man and a woman as candidates for commissioner roles.
The only exception to that, von der Leyen said, was if an EU country was renominating a current commissioner, such as France’s Thierry Breton.
Five current male commissioners have been renominated, while Croatia’s Dubravka Šuica is the only woman nominated for a return, which further complicates von der Leyen’s aims for a gender-balanced EU Commission.
Commissioners are regarded as the highest-ranking diplomats in the EU and are the people who are put in charge of drafting and amending various types of new European policy.
Each of the EU’s 27 member countries gets to have a commissioner and Von der Leyen, a German, fills her country’s spot.
There is a deadline of this Friday to put forward nominations and of the 22 candidates already proposed, 16 men and six women have been put forward.
Portugal, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, and Bulgaria are the five member states yet to announce their choice.
Of these five states, only Bulgaria is expected to nominate a woman.
In such a scenario, only 26% of commissioners would be women, a marked drop from the 44% when the previous EU Commission formed in 2019.
For Ireland, upon the formation of the current government, it was decided that Fianna Fáil would appoint the next EU Commissioner to replace Fine Gael’s Mairead McGuinness.
Michael McGrath, who had been Minister for Finance, was announced in June as Ireland’s pick for Commissioner.
Outgoing European Commissioner Mairead McGuinness last month warned the government to think about the “bigger picture” when only nominating McGrath for the position and cautioned that it could be viewed as the government “backsliding” on its commitments to equality.
“That’s not to be in any way disrespectful to the view of the President von der Leyen – it’s for two reasons,” said Harris at the MacGill Summer School in Co Donegal last month.
“One, the treaties do allow member states to decide their commissioner,” said Harris.
“Secondly, we’ve just asked our finance minister to not be the finance minister, he has stepped down from cabinet and he’s now preparing very intensively – it’s important to provide him with that certainty.”
EU Commission spokesperson Arianna Podesta last month declined to be drawn into what von der Leyen might do if her two-candidate demand was ignored.
“It’s a request concerning an aim to have gender equality… and I think it’s fairly clear what she’s aiming at,” she said.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say