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BRUSSELS — Ursula von der Leyen is piling pressure on EU countries to nominate women for the next European Commission as she seeks to stave off the potential humiliation of presenting a male-dominated team.
Two EU officials pointed to a risk of “embarrassment” for an institution that publicly promotes gender equality and has a “commissioner for equality” role if von der Leyen falls significantly short of parity.
Such a failure, they said, risked overshadowing the fact that three of the EU’s most important jobs will be held by women: von der Leyen as European Commission president, Estonia’s nomination of Kaja Kallas as the head of the EU’s diplomatic service, and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola.
Von der Leyen stared down multiple crises during her first term as the head of the European Union’s executive, including tackling a pandemic and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Now Europe’s most powerful politician is facing an unexpected challenge as she assembles her team of 26 commissioners from the European Union’s member states: achieving gender parity. Currently, nine female nominees have been submitted by national capitals, excluding von der Leyen herself.
Experts and politicians who agree with von der Leyen’s request say her Commission could prove to be less collegial and, ultimately, less effective as a result of not having enough women around the table.
“Unfortunately, equality between women and men is still seen as optional, or as something disposable,” said Jéromine Andolfatto, policy and campaigns officer at the European Women’s Lobby.
In a sign that von der Leyen is pushing hard to get as close as possible to parity, Belgium on Monday said it would send a female commissioner while Romania agreed to switch out its proposed male commissioner for a female one.
Three diplomats who spoke to POLITICO said that von der Leyen was pressuring at least five smaller EU countries, including Slovenia and Malta, to consider replacing the male candidates they’ve put forward with female replacements. The diplomats, like others quoted in this story, were granted anonymity to speak freely about confidential deliberations between von der Leyen’s cabinet and their governments.
Von der Leyen has urged Malta to propose extending the mandate of its current EU commissioner, Helena Dalli, rather than sending Glenn Micallef, the man proposed by Malta’s Prime Minister Robert Abela, two EU diplomats said. But Abela would not change his mind about sending Micallef because “this would undermine his authority,” a third EU diplomat said.
The fact that a change in candidate would be motivated by gender would “not go down well with the government and the Maltese in general.”
“It has proven very useful to have a gender balance in the College and it was very far-sighted to ask for it,” said Věra Jourová, the outgoing Czech commissioner who was an ally of von der Leyen’s during the previous mandate.
Ignoring a call for two names
Other diplomats, EU officials and experts also warned that von der Leyen had created a situation in which national capitals appear to be defying her authority by ignoring her pleas to send more women to Brussels. Von der Leyen openly requested in a letter to EU leaders that they submit two names for each commissioner post for her to consider, one male and one female, rather than just one.
That request appears to have backfired as most countries declined to heed von der Leyen’s request and sent in only one name (only Bulgaria has publicly nominated a man and a woman).
One high-ranking EU official said von der Leyen had suffered from a combination of defiance from member countries who didn’t feel the need to follow her request, a lack of public outcry from Brussels politicians, and plain old bad luck.
“This isn’t about the member states trying to be mean,” said an EU diplomat from a country that proposed a male candidate, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Some diplomats cited a range of other reasons why countries didn’t do what von der Leyen had asked of them, from coalition deals that take the power of nominating the commissioner out of the leader’s hands to domestic political imperatives to the simple fact that publicly naming two candidates exposes the one who doesn’t get the job to political humiliation.
“It is difficult to give two names on paper because the one who loses, well, loses and in politics that makes for bad optics,” added the EU diplomat.
Sometimes, the EU diplomat said, the choice of who to send to Brussels arises from intensely domestic considerations: from wanting to “get rid of” some party figure to the need to reward someone with a plumb post in Brussels, where an average commissioner’s salary in 2023 amounted to more than €25,000 per month tax-free (presidents, executive vice presidents and the foreign affairs chief all earn more.) In Belgium, for example, the post ended up with Foreign Affairs Minister Hadja Lahbib because no other political party wanted to give up a ministerial post in the upcoming government for it.
“Ultimately, a lot of these appointments are made with national logic in mind — not Brussels logic,” the diplomat added.
Another European diplomat added they supported von der Leyen’s push for gender balance, but getting there was her problem to solve.
“It is ultimately up to von der Leyen to ‘solve that puzzle’ and she could strong-arm, persuade or buy off member states in order to come up with more women,” the European diplomat said.
History lessons
When von der Leyen assembled her first Commission team in 2019, she didn’t face the same challenge with parity as countries sent more women than they did this time.
While EU treaties don’t require the Commission president to assemble a gender-balanced team, it’s increasingly seen as a priority for incoming presidents stretching back to José Manuel Barroso’s 10-year term as Commission president, which started in 2004.
Von der Leyen, whose first term started in 2019, was the first president to achieve gender balance in the EU executive. Her predecessor, Jean-Claude Juncker, had nine women out of a total of 27 commissioners.
The growing risk for von der Leyen is that despite her pleas to capitals and the symbolism of her own reelection, she could end up presiding over the most male-dominated European Commission since Juncker’s time.
“Although I never saw gender as the only qualification criterion, I would find it regretful [sic] if in the next Commission there were fewer women than in the Juncker one,” said Jourová.
As pressure grows on von der Leyen to finalize her choices, that appears to be exactly what she’s doing: turning the screws on EU member countries to propose female candidates or switch their initial male proposal for a female one.
If she fails, von der Leyen might have to face the humiliating task of telling Parliament that she has failed to deliver gender balance, just a few months after pledging that she would deliver it.
Her last resort? Hoping the Parliament steps in to even the score during hearings at which they can veto commissioner candidates. Last time around, they chopped three names from the list both before and during the hearings.
This time, according to the high-ranking official at least, MEPs could claim even more scalps, forcing countries to propose alternate candidates and, potentially, more women.
“The EU has the legal obligation to ensure equality between women and men and to apply gender mainstreaming to EU policies. This goal cannot be achieved without equal representation of women at the top decision-making positions and it is time member states fully realize it,” said Andolfatto of the European Women’s Lobby.
Max Griera, Giovanna Coi and Jacopo Barigazzi contributed reporting.
