Socialists and Democrats fight back against gender imbalance in EU top job appointments
Date
06 Mar 2019
Sections
Social Europe & Jobs
The S&D Group strongly calls for a new era in the method of appointments in all EU and national positions. With the nomination of Philip Lane as a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB) and José Manuel Campa as Chair of the European Banking Authority (EBA), the gender balance has once again not been respected. S&Ds initiated as a driving force from the very beginning an amendment on gender balance in the economic and monetary affairs committee. The S&D Group asks for a resolution to be adopted next week by the Parliament to demand a change in the procedures to ensure gender equality, and invites the other political groups to join this resolution.
Pervenche Berès, S&D Group spokesperson on economic and monetary affairs, said:
“Women continue to be underrepresented in executive positions in the field of banking and financial services. We cannot accept this ongoing discrimination and call therefore, in a resolution next week, for a radical shift in mindset and procedure for gender equal nominations in all EU and national institutions and bodies for the future. We also expect a clear answer from the Council to the letter* of the European Parliament, where we raised our concerns this week. In the future, we will not take any list of candidates that is not gender balanced into consideration.”
Mercedes Bresso, S&D vice-president for economic and social model, added:
“In the public European top-positions from the banking sector and beyond, we will not tolerate one-sided proposals any more. Even though, as in this case, the selected candidates demonstrated in hearings a high qualification for the position in the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Banking Authority (EBA), we strongly regret not having had a balanced proposal from the very beginning.”
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