Gender Balanced Commission

Mostra 2009 Portfolio Screeshot - from mostra.com

A retweet from @belitabrux drew my attention today to a Mostra e-book called Opinion Corner. Take a look – it’s well researched, looks smartly designed… but why does it exist? It’s not that different from the (paper) Shift>Mag published by Tipik in Brussels, a publication that I’ve written for a couple of times. It’s smartly printed and has its own website but if the 10 people that have voted in their recent poll is indicative of the number of web visitors, it’s not immensely popular or relevant. Again why? What is the cost per visitor, the cost per reader of each of these initiatives?

Both Tipik and Mostra are communications agencies that work almost uniquely for the EU institutions. Indeed Mostra’s portfolio for the last 12 months shows nothing but EU institutional clients, and Tipik counts a dozen Commission DGs in its references, and it has 160 staff in Brussels.

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The Treaty of Lisbon has been ratified and Heads of State and Government are getting together on Thursday this week to try to hammer out a deal on the EU’s top positions – President of the European Council and High Representative for Foreign Policy. Once that’s in place the team of 27 members of the European Commission is going to be put together, with the same style of corridor diplomacy.

It’s in that context that I’ve teamed up with Maria Weimer and Eurosocialiste and a number of others over the last 2 days to cook up a little online initiative about gender balance in the incoming European Commission. The outgoing Commission contained 8 women among its 27 members; the fear is that the incoming Commission could be even worse.

Our small website urges the European Parliament to not approve the Commission unless it contains at least 1/3 women, i.e. 9 of the 27 Commissioners. More than that the EP needs alternatives, and that’s what we’re providing – a list of 26 viable candidates (Barroso having already been selected). You can also follow us on Twitter, and become a fan on Facebook.

[UPDATE 17.11.09]
The campaign has now been covered on the website of European Voice.