The European Commission reshuffled its top bureaucrats this week, with President of the Commission Jean Claude Juncker apparently desperate to come across as more “female friendly” during the big move.
But eagle-eyed journalists have noticed that while the EU claims a stark increased in the number of female Director Generals in the European Commission, they “conveniently omitted” Acting Director General Vivi Michou from last year’s list, “creating the impression that female DGs went from 5 to 7, instead of 6 to 7.”
The claim was spotted by Ryan Heath at Politico Europe, who noted: “Women now hold 20 percent of the top Commission jobs. That’s 7 percent less than the Afghanistan Parliament. Meanwhile seven of the eight most powerful departments and the three biggest spenders are run by men.”
Which begs the question, if indeed you are wed to the idea of positive discrimination and female quotas, surely you do it with full gusto, rather than trying to fudge the numbers?
Science Business reports: “Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the announcement is the meagre effort to bring gender balance to the EU’s top jobs. Big departments such as the Secretariat-General, Competition, Economic and Financial Affairs, Trade, Energy and Digital will all have men at the controls.
“For now, there are only seven women directors-general, far behind the target set by Juncker when he promised to bring the share of female managers up to 40 per cent by the end of his mandate.
“Juncker reiterated his commitment towards the goal.
“‘There are still too few women among our senior managers,’ Juncker said in a statement. ‘It remains my firm intention to change that during my mandate.'”
This sort of tells you all you need to know about Brussels and its apparatchiks – keen for the “progressive” PR, but not really so bothered about implementing their promises, no matter how wrong-headed they are in the first place.
Vive la indifference!
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