Presentation at the WomenPower Fair organized by the Cyprus Interaction Lab of the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts of the Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol CYPRUS

1. PRESENTATION BY
DR. ERATO KOZAKOU MARCOULLIS
FORMER MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
“Breaking the glass ceiling
in decision making positions”
AT THE WOMENPOWER FAIR
ORGANIZED
BY THE WOMEN POWER PLATFORM
AND THE INTERACTION AND TECHNOLOGY LAB OF THE
MULTIMEDIA AND GRAPHIC ARTS DEPARTMENT OF TEPAK
.

2. General Approach
• Concentrate on European Union Countries
• Focus on political participation and decision
making positions
• Cyprus is at the very bottom of the list
compared with other EU countries
• What are the best practices followed by other
countries and how they achieved the change

3. General observations
at the EU level
• Significant progress during the last 20 years
• Participation of women in employment in the EU has
reached around 60% thus contributing significantly to
economic development and competitiveness
• 60% of University graduates in EU are women who
have a higher level of education compared to men
• Nevertheless, at the level of decision making
participation of women remains generally at
unacceptably at low levels, with glaring exceptions
observed in the Nordic countries which all five have
reached levels of near or full equality

4. Let us look first at some statistics
HEADS OF STATE AND GOVERNMENT OF THE EU
In The European Council only 5 from the 28 Member states are women: The President of
Lituania Dalia Grybauskait, the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, The Prime Minister of
Denmark Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the Prime Minister of Poland Ewa Kopacz and the Prime
Minister of Latvia Laimdota Straujuma.
The President of the European Council (Donald Tusk) is a man

5. Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the EU
The High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy is a woman, Federica
Mogherini (Italy). There are three other women Foreign Ministers: Margot Wallström
(Sweden), Vesna Pusić (Croatia), Keit Pentus-Rosimannus (Estonia).

6. EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Only 9 women Commissioners in the 28 Member European Commission
(32%) coming from Italy, Bulgaria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Poland,
Denmark and Slovenia
The President of the European Commission (Jean-Claude Juncker) is a man

7. European Parliament/ May 2014 elections
37% of the Members are women which shows an increase of about 2% from the
2009 elections
The President of the European Parliament (Martin Schulz) is a man

8. Representation of women in the European Parliament
1979-2014

9. THE MEMBER OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT OF TODAY AND TOMORROW
Licia Ronzulli MEP from Italy takes part in a voting session in the European Parliament
in Strasbourg and her daughter Victoria insisted on having her say too

10. SITUATION IN MEMBER STATES
EMPOWERING WOMEN AT THE POLITICAL LEVEL
WOMEN IN NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS
Progress observed with women constituting an EU AVERAGE of 28%
YET, THE GLASS CEILING IN SOME MEMBER STATES REMAINS UNBREAKABLE

11. Proportion of Women in National Parliaments and National
Governments of the EU Member States
November 20144

12. There is lack of uniformity regarding the participation of
women in National Governments of member states
• The largest proportion of women in
Government is observed in FINLAND, with
59%
• SWEDEN follows with 50%
• FRANCE with 47%
• ESTONIA with 43%
• ITALY with 40%
• The countries with the smallest proportion of
women in Government are HUNGARY with
0%, SLOVAKIA with 6 %, MALTA with 7% and
CYPRUS with 9.1%

13. GENERAL OBSERVATION REGARDING THE PARTICIPATION OF
WOMEN IN NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS OF MEMBER STATES
• Progress has been observed during the last decade with an
annual increase of 0.7%, yet the road to full equality is still
long if one sees the low proportion of women in national
governments of most of the member states .
• Women Ministers usually assume responsibilities in the
Socio-Cultural fields, while the so called basic Ministries,
i.e. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Defense, Interior and
Justice, as well as the Ministries relating to the Economy
are represented usually by men
• Today we have Women Ministers of Defense only in
Germany, the Netherlands and Italy. In previous years
Finland, Sweden, Latvia, France, the Czech Republic, Spain,
Slovenia, Lithuania, Denmark and Slovakia had Ministers of
Defense

14. THE THREE MINISTERS OF DEFENSE OF MEMBER STATES
2012- Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, NETHERLANDS
2013- Ursula von der Leyen, GERMANY
2014- Sen. Roberta Pinotti ITALY

15. WOMEN IN POLITICS 2014Ι
MAP OF THE INTERPARLIAMENTARY UNION SHOWING WOMEN IN NATIONAL PARLIAMENTS
CYPRUS WITH 12.5% RANKS IN THE 107TH PLACE
TURKEY WITH 14.4% IS IN THE 96TH PLACE

16. WOMEN IN NATIONAL PARLIAMENTS OF MEMBER STATES OF THE EU
EU average of Women in Parliament is 28% . Compared to the 2009 EU average that stood at
22%, an annual increase at the level of 0.5% can be observed,
WHICH IS NOT SATISFACTORY
Member states with 45-23%
• Sweden 44%
• Finland 42%
• Denmark 39%
• Netherlands 39%
• Belgium 39%
• Spain 36%
• Germany 36%
• Austria 33%
• Slovenia 32%
• Italy 28%
• Portugal 27%
• Croatia 24%
• Poland 24%
• Lithuania 24%
• Greece 23%
• Luxembourg 23%
Member states with 22-10%
• UK 22%
• Bulgaria 20%
• Czech Republic 20%
• Estonia 20%
• Slovakia 19%
• Latvia 18%
• Ireland 15%
• Malta 14%
• Romania 13%
• Malta 13%
• Cyprus 12.5%
• Hungary 10%

17. DISAPOINTING INEQUALITY
IN POLITICAL DECISION MAKING

18. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
• The persisting inequality impacts on the
democratic legitimacy of decision making
and deprives European societies of increased
economic development
• It deprives the EU from improved efficiency
and from better utilization of talents which is
vital, especially at times of economic crisis.

19. What is the answer?
What are the best practices?
• How certain countries achieved to move
speedily towards equality and reach the
highest levels of representation of women in
decision making positions?
• The answer to a great extend is:
• By the use of QUOTA

20. What is a Quota?
• QUOTA: is a positive measure that
establishes a fixed percentage or number for
the representation of a specific category of
persons
There are Three types of Quota systems
1. Constitutional Quotas
2. Legislative Quotas
3. Voluntary Political Party Quotas

21. EXAMPLES OF COUNTRIES THAT HAVE ADOPTED QUOTAS
• Constitutional quotas: Τhe Constitutions of France and
Greece include provisions for adoption of positive
measures for promoting equality and the equal access of
men and women to elected positions
• Legislative quotas: Countries like Belgium, France, Greece,
Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Slovenia and Poland have
adopted legislative quotas for the elections to the National
Parliament which range from 30-50%.
• Voluntary Political Party quotas: have been adopted by
political parties in 21 of the 28 member states, as for
example in Austria, Croatia, Germany, Spain, Poland,
Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden and UK.
• The introduction of quotas has speeded up progress and
has increased the participation of women in the political
life of these countries in a short period of time

22. Three countries that have adopted quotas seen in this chart in five
electoral periods- percentage of women before and after the
introduction of quotas
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Election 5
(1995-6)
Election 4
(1999-2000)
Election 3
(2003-4)
Last but
one(2007-8)
Latest
(2010-11)
Belgium 1999
Slovenia 2008
France 2002

23. Examples of countries with quotas
• Spain Legislative quota according to which candidates from the
two genders should constitute at least 40% of the total number
of candidates . In case of no compliance the list is rejected
• Greece Legislative quota with at least 1/3 of the candidates in
the electoral lists of the political parties to be from each gender
• France: the electoral law provides that the difference between
the candidates of each gender should not be greater than 2%.
• Poland and Slovenia: at least 35% quota for each gender
• Portugal : at least 33% quota for both genders.

24. CONCLUDING REMARKS
• Our goal remains full equality, which means 50-50 %
representation of women in political decision making
• To achieve this goal what is required is the political will
of governments and political parties to allow the
necessary changes, legislative and otherwise.
• Moreover women themselves should form a forceful
pressure group to demand the societal changes
• Until that time the struggle should continue at a global
level.
• Women, constituting 50+% of the population of our
planet, demand what they are entitled to, i.e. at least
50% of decision making positions.

25. Proportion of women in the Cyprus House
of Representatives at election years
0 0 0
2.8 2.8
5.4 5.4
10.8
14.3
12.5
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
1960 1970 1976 1981 1985 1991 1996 2001 2006 2011
% Women

26. What needs to be done
for Cyprus
• Cyprus is lagging behind (fourth from the bottom of the list
in the EU) regarding the representation and participation of
women in political life.
• At a global level Cyprus ranks 107th, a shameful position for
our country.
• The pace of increase of women in the Parliament is
extremely slow and between 2006 and 2011 a decrease of
approximately 13.5% was observed.
• We must move forward with the adoption of legislative
quotas in order to achieve the effective participation of
women in the Parliament.
• All political parties should adopt quotas and ensure that
women candidates are placed in electable positions.

27. House of Representatives 2014
Men 49 - Women 7 (12.5%)

28. Swedish Parliament 2014
Men 197 - Women 152 (44%)

29. IF OTHER COUNTRIES ACHIEVED EQUALITY
WHY NOT CYPRUS