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Juncker meets women target for new team

04 September 2014, 20:48 CET
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(BRUSSELS) - Incoming EU executive head Jean-Claude Juncker met a target for the number of women on his new team on Thursday, avoiding a threat by legislators to block his choice if there were too few female commissioners.

Juncker now has nine women in the 28-member staff that will run the European Commission for the next five years, the same number as in the outgoing team led by Jose Manuel Barroso, a spokeswoman said.

Juncker had initially struggled to meet demands in the European Parliament to match the previous commission's total, and he has still fallen short of the demands of a campaign by female commissioners for ten women in top jobs.

He had promised to offer countries important positions if they nominate women candidates.

"With the nomination of @CorinaCretu_PSD, @JunckerEU now has 9 female candidates," Juncker spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said on Twitter Thursday.

Corina Cretu, a Social Democratic member of the European Parliament from Romania, is among a flurry of women candidates nominated by their countries in the last few days.

Under pressure from Juncker, Romania at the last minute dropped Dacian Ciolos, the outgoing agriculture minister, in favour of Cretu.

Belgium also named a woman at the last minute, picking European legislator Marianne Thyssen on Thursday following drawn-out negotiations that were complicated by talks to form a coalition government at home.

The Belgian was an "excellent choice", Bertaud said.

Other female candidates for commissioner positions are Bulgaria's Kristalina Georgieva, the outgoing humanitarian affairs commissioner, Sweden's Cecilia Malmstroem, the outgoing home affairs commissioner, and the Czech Republic's Vera Jourova, the minister for regional development.

European leaders at a weekend summit named Federica Mogherini, the 41-year-old Italian foreign minister, as EU foreign policy chief, a high-profile position still to be confirmed by the parliament.

She would replace Catherine Ashton of Britain.

The remaining women candidates are Denmark's Margrethe Vestager, Poland's Elzbieta Bienkowska and Slovenia's Alenka Bratusek.

Juncker's commissioner choices will all be interviewed in coming weeks by the European Parliament, before legislators vote on the full line up from October 20-23.

On Monday, Gianni Pittella, the leader of the socialists in the European Parliament said her group would oppose "a college of European commissioners with fewer women than today".

Were lawmakers to follow through on their threat, the long effort to staff the next commission may well have to start from scratch.

EU sources said the full list of names for the 28-member commission will be released on Friday and they will be assigned their portfolios in the middle of next week.


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