Strasbourg, 06.03.2009 – “A genuine democracy needs women in high posts,” said today Lydie Err (Luxembourg, SOC), who chairs the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly’s Sub-Committee on Equal Participation of Women and Men in Decision-making, speaking on the occasion of International Women’s Day. “And it is political parties which have a key role to play in ensuring that women have access to elected posts and positions,” she added.
The Assembly has called for guidelines for political parties to be put into place to reinforce gender equality within political parties, she pointed out.
“The organisation and the functioning of political parties are mainly based on a masculine logic, and numerous obstacles remain, such as selection criteria and procedure inside parties, lack of transparency of the procedures of candidate recruitment, and the pressures of reconciling professional and family life which are different from those of men,” Ms Err explained.
This is why the Assembly has set up the Gender Equality Prize which will be awarded for the first time in October 2009, she said. The "Equality Prize" is intended for national and European political parties in recognition of specific completed or current action that has significantly improved women’s participation in elected assemblies or political parties, or in their respective executive bodies. The deadline for the submission of candidatures is 1 June 2009.
Ms Err has just returned from New York, where she spoke at a UN event on equal participation of women and men in political and public decision-making. “We will only achieve equal participation of women and men in decision-making if we can mobilise political will, which needs to be translated into laws, rules and regulations, at both country and party-political levels, as well as women themselves: women need to stand as candidates for elections, women need to vote for other women, and women need to lobby for more women candidates,” Ms Err concluded.
