03/10/2012 Session
Strasbourg, 03.10.2012 - Only 23% of the members of national parliaments of Council of Europe member states are women, whereas they represent some 51% of the population. However, this average figure hides a huge gap between a handful of countries in which women’s representation in parliament exceeds 40 percent (Andorra, Finland, Netherlands and Sweden) and many more countries in which it is under 20 percent (Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Estonia, Lithuania, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey), or in some cases even under 10 percent (Georgia, Hungary, Malta, Russian Federation and Ukraine). The Assembly proposes to organise seminars on women’s political representation in the last-mentioned group of countries.
Given that the low proportion of women in parliaments affects their representativeness, the Assembly, after discussing a report by Maria Stavrositu (Romania, EPP/CD), adopted a raft of measures to redress this imbalance. These measures are especially aimed at political parties in member states, observer states and countries with partner for democracy status, which not only have a duty to ensure strict compliance with electoral legislation but are also well placed to promote a change of culture conducive to gender equality, in politics and in society at large.