While the proportion of women in the executive and legislative bodies of EU countries has increased over the years, access to key positions of political influence is still limited — in some member states more than in others.
Since January 26, 2021, Estonia for the first time in its history has a female Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas. This brings the number of women currently heading national governments in the EU to 5. That represents 22%, which slightly increases when adding the European Commission, currently led by Ursula von der Leyen. When considering other key roles, both in executive and legislative bodies, the situation does not improve.
According to the most recent Eurostat data, in 2019, only 31.4% of members of the governments of member states were women: less than a third, but nonetheless an improvement over time. In fact, this represents an increase of 11 percentage points over 15 years. However, when analyzing the national data, this obvious progress has not affected all countries in the same way.
From 20.5% of women government members in 2004, France nearly reached parity in 2019, with 48.6%, a growth of 28.1 points. However, looking at key positions even in the executive, it emerges that none of them are occupied by women.
Female Presence in EU Parliaments
Over the past twenty years, in almost all EU countries, a gender quota system has been introduced, either legislatively or voluntarily, for legislative elections. This tool obliges political parties to present candidate lists where there is a balanced presence of men and women. These measures have undoubtedly led to an increase in the presence of women in European parliaments, but in no EU country have they resulted in effective gender parity within the legislative bodies.
France increased the number of female parliamentarians between 2004 and 2019 by more than 20 points.
