23/01/2023 Session
The PACE contribution to the 4th Council of Europe Summit; the lists of candidates for the posts of judges to the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Denmark and Iceland; the activities of the Standing Committee in Reykjavik (25 November 2022); and elections observations, were among the items in the progress report of the PACE’s Bureau and Standing Committee, presented today by George Katrougalos, (Greece, UEL) in plenary session.
This report reviews the work and decisions of the Assembly's subsidiary bodies since the last session.
Since 2012, it includes annual statistics on the gender breakdown of Assembly positions, presented during the January session. These show, in particular, that in 2022 the total number of women members of PACE represented 40% – an increase compared to 37% in 2021 – with national delegations often having a higher representation rate of women than national parliaments. The representation of women as rapporteurs, which had been steadily declining in the previous three years, has improved clearly, returning to the 2019 level of 36%.
PACE Resolution 2394 (2021), whose provisions will apply as from the January 2023 part-session, aims to introduce more balanced representation of women and men in all its structures. Delegations will have to include at least the same percentage of women as in their national parliament, or to respect the minimum “one in three” principle for women's representation in national delegations. Rapporteurs in committees will henceforth comprise at least one-third of women. PACE also encourages the appointment of women in the more prominent echelons of the Assembly, where levels have decreased in recent years, the progress report points out.