Ursula von der Leyen is piling pressure on EU countries to nominate women for the next European Commission as she seeks to stave off the potential humiliation of presenting a male-dominated team.
Two EUofficials pointed to a risk of “embarrassment” for an institution that publicly promotes gender equality and has a “commissioner for equality” role if von der Leyen falls significantly short of parity.
Such a failure, they said, risked overshadowing the fact that three of the EU’s most important jobs will be held by women: von der Leyen as European Commission president, Estonia’s nomination of Kaja Kallas as the head of the EU’s diplomatic service, and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola.
Currently, nine female nominees have been submitted by national capitals, excluding von der Leyen herself.
Experts and politicians who agree with von der Leyen’s request say her Commission could prove to be less collegial and, ultimately, less effective as a result of not having enough women around the table.
In a sign that von der Leyen is pushing hard to get as close as possible to parity, Belgium on Monday said it would send a female commissioner while Romania agreed to switch out its proposed male commissioner for a female one.
Three diplomats who spoke to POLITICO said that von der Leyen was pressuring at least five smaller EU countries, including Slovenia and Malta, to consider replacing the male candidates they’ve put forward with female replacements.
Von der Leyen has urged Malta to propose extending the mandate of its current EU commissioner, Helena Dalli, rather than sending Glenn Micallef, the man proposed by Malta’s Prime Minister Robert Abela, two EU diplomats said.But Abela would not change his mind about sending Micallef because “this would undermine his authority,” a third EU diplomat said.
The fact that a change in candidate would be motivated by gender would “not go down well with the government and the Maltese in general.”
Other diplomats, EU officials and experts also warned that von der Leyen had created a situation in which national capitals appear to be defying her authority by ignoring her pleas to send more women to Brussels. Von der Leyen openly requested in a letter to EU leaders that they submit two names for each commissioner post for her to consider, one male and one female, rather than just one.
That request appears to have backfired as most countries declined to heed von der Leyen’s request and sent in only one name (only Bulgaria has publicly nominated a man and a woman).
One high-ranking EU official said von der Leyen had suffered from a combination of defiance from member countries who didn’t feel the need to follow her request, a lack of public outcry from Brussels politicians, and plain old bad luck.
Some diplomats cited a range of other reasons why countries didn’t do what von der Leyen had asked of them, from coalition deals that take the power of nominating the commissioner out of the leader’s hands to domestic political imperatives to the simple fact that publicly naming two candidates exposes the one who doesn’t get the job to political humiliation.
“It is difficult to give two names on paper because the one who loses, well, loses and in politics that makes for bad optics,” added the EU diplomat.
Sometimes, the EU diplomat said, the choice of who to send to Brussels arises from intensely domestic considerations: from wanting to “get rid of” some party figure to the need to reward someone with a plumb post in Brussels, where an average commissioner’s salary in 2023 amounted to more than €25,000 per month tax-free (presidents, executive vice presidents and the foreign affairs chief all earn more.)
While EU treaties don’t require the Commission president to assemble a gender-balanced team, it’s increasingly seen as a priority for incoming presidents stretching back to José Manuel Barroso’s 10-year term as Commission president, which started in 2004.
Von der Leyen, whose first term started in 2019, was the first president to achieve gender balance in the EU executive. Her predecessor, Jean-Claude Juncker, had nine women out of a total of 27 commissioners.
Hoping the Parliament steps in to even the score during hearings at which they can veto commissioner candidates. Last time around, they chopped three names from the list both before and during the hearings.
This time, according to the high-ranking official at least, MEPs could claim even more scalps, forcing countries to propose alternate candidates and, potentially, more women.
Read more via Politico
