Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou
"Championing women's rights around the world is ultimately about forging solidarity between women and about trying to remove all these barriers and obstacles in the participation of women in political, social and economic life.” - Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou
iKNOW Politics: As a woman in a leadership position, what challenges have you faced in entering politics in Greece and in becoming Vice President of the European Parliament? Has it been difficult to meet the expectations, workload and pressure that your mandate entails?
Greece, as most Mediterranean countries, lags behind in women's participation in politics, something due to a great extent to the traditional social structure and to gender stereotypes. The political environment is not hostile towards women's participation in public affairs but it is not encouraging or supportive either.
I would say that neither the problems a woman faces nor the importance of female participation in politics are properly understood. Facing these challenges requires from a woman a firm personal choice, strong will and her commitment to pursue a leading role in politics and society. Any doubts will eventually clear up step by step as a woman leader advances in her political career and makes concrete progress in Greece or elsewhere. Compared to Greek politics, my experience in the European Parliament was different.
In our House it is crystal clear that colleagues, male or female, are judged upon the basis of their merits alone. Women in Parliament are not treated as a minority, but on the contrary they have a strong presence, both in numbers and as reflected by the quality of their work in many policy areas. Let's not forget after all that Simone Veil was the first President of the directly elected European Parliament in 1979. In trying to meet my colleagues' expectations and to tackle the considerable workload of Parliament's plenary sessions and Bureau, gender mainstreaming has been only one of my concerns, which include the delicate balances between the political groups, the disparities between the political cultures of Member States and the dual role of Parliament as a political body and an administration.
iKNOW Politics: As member of the Committee on Women’s rights and gender equality, and as chair of the European Parliament’s High-level group on gender equality, you are working on the integration of gender mainstreaming in European legislation and institutions, including the European Parliament itself. Which efforts do you think are necessary to make this effort successful, within the European Parliament itself, within Europe and the European Institutions and also in relation to the EU’s policies that want to have an impact beyond the European Union?
The European Parliament has been committed to pursuing gender equality from the very beginning of its 50-year political history both in house and in Europe as a whole. It is worth noting in this regard that today in the European Parliament we have a constantly increasing number both of women MEPs and of women holding high profile positions: we currently have 5 female Vice-Presidents, 2 female Quaestors, 2 female Chairs of political groups and 6 women chairing parliamentary Committees and Sub-Committees. Furthermore, further to the arrival of our Romanian and Bulgarian colleagues, the percentage of women Members of the EP has risen at 39%.
At the same time, the European Parliament, as an administration, has adopted policies of affirmative action aiming at establishing a gender balance in its staff. Currently, women represent the 61% of Parliament's personnel and hold approximately 25% of decision making and management posts. The High-Level Group which I'm honored to chair was established by the Bureau in 2004 as a follow-up to Parliament's 2003 Resolution on Gender Mainstreaming in the European Parliament.
The Group monitors gender mainstreaming in EP activities across the board: committee work, budget, and information and communication policy. During the current parliamentary term, the Group has mainly focused on mainstreaming gender issues in the work of parliamentary committees, staff policy and gender-neutral language. The European Parliament, as a political body, has repeatedly drafted reports, supported initiatives, approved funds and voted in favour of resolutions asking for a balanced participation of men and women in all instances of decision making. In addition, it constantly calls on the other institutions, namely the Council and the European Commission, to enhance gender mainstreaming across the board, from peace building missions and development cooperation to gender budgeting in Structural Funds and cohesion policy and to the special attention needed for women in rural areas of Europe.
Parliament's intervention is therefore twofold, firstly passing gender and equality legislation and secondly shaping political orientations in order to facilitate and participate in the ongoing political debate on the gender and equality agenda in Europe. Coming back to your question, what needs to be done is to rigorously monitor the implementation of the EU equality legislation by the Member States and the institutions themselves, to call on the Council and the Commission to follow-up on Parliament's resolutions in this regard, and to fine-tune our relevant policies and financial instruments so as to assure their coherence, complementarity and efficiency.
iKNOW Politics: You are responsible for the European Parliament’s Euro-Mediterranean relations and you have won the Euro-Med Award for the Dialogue between Cultures in 2007. Can you tell our readers how your work in this capacity has contributed to the protection of women’s rights in the region and their promotion in public life?
I have the honor to serve as the Vice-President responsible for both Gender Equality and the Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation. Wearing these two hats has allowed me to follow closely the progress in the field of women's rights in our Mediterranean neighbor countries. In addition, I had the honor to contribute in the setting up of the Women's Committee of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly (EMPA) and to proudly serve as its Vice-President until last June.
This enabled me to forge strong and mutually fruitful relations with my counterparts from the southern Mediterranean, and to enjoy a privileged partnership with key women policymakers and stakeholders in the Middle East. During my frequent missions and visits in the Middle East and the Mediterranean countries, meeting women representatives and stakeholders from the local societies has been always a priority.
These two different aspects of my parliamentary career have helped me realize that, despite the irrefutable disparities between the situation of women in Europe and that of women in developing countries, the challenges lying ahead of them are altogether the same: under-representation in economic and political life, pay gap between men and women, gender discriminations, difficulties in trying to reconcile private and professional life. It goes without saying, nevertheless, that women in the Middle East and Arab world face additional obstacles and problems, for instance pertaining to their legal status or to the consequences of an arbitral or archaic interpretation of religious rules and practices. Let us not forget that in some countries women ambassadors and ministers still need to be escorted by their husband when travelling abroad on official visits and missions.
Championing women's rights around the world is ultimately about forging solidarity between women and about trying to remove all these barriers and obstacles in the participation of women in political, social and economic life. And overcoming obstacles requires the building of bridges between European women and women of the southern Mediterranean; even virtual bridges like the ones that iKNOW Politics can help build. Recently we had one more chance to realize how fruitful the networking and exchange of views can be between women from the North and the South.
In the framework of the Arab week that was held in the European Parliament, we organized a very interesting and enlightening exchange of views focusing on the role of women in the Arab world, both Maghreb and Mashreq, and also the situation of Arab women who have immigrated in Europe. The major conclusion of this event was that the political empowerment of women in the Mediterranean countries presupposes a fundamental change in their personal and family status, which can only be achieved through a change in mentalities, legal and social reforms, and ultimately more democracy.
iKNOW Politics: In 2006, you submitted a report to the European Parliament on the role and place of immigrant women in the EU. Based on your report, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling the member states to promote access of immigrant women to economic, political, social and cultural life in the host country as well as take actions in combating violations of rights of such women and girls. From this experience, what do you think women leaders worldwide should do to empower women and secure their rights?
The aim of our report was to highlight the number of problems that immigrant women face upon arriving in Europe and their conditions of living and integrating in the European Union. In this regard, it is worth noting that we often lack reliable and up-to-date statistics on immigrant women. We nevertheless estimate that they account for 4% of the total EU population and 54 % of immigrants in Europe. The main problems they face concern discriminations in employment and social marginalization.
The employment rate of legal immigrant women is only 44% and only 17 % of them acquire higher education. In addition, they suffer from multiple discriminations, based on gender, ethnic origin, language, religion. Special attention should be given to the opportunities of immigrant women to integrate in professional life, especially of those that arrive in Europe on the basis of family reunification. This is why we stressed in our report that Directive 2003/86/EC has not yet been satisfactorily implemented by all Member States, leaving substantial scope for discriminatory treatment of women immigrants.
It is worth noting that our report was adopted at a vast majority and that the then responsible Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, Mr. Franco Frattini welcomed our suggestions and promised to integrate them into the Commission's policies in the field. This means that on the European level there is the political will to address the issues of immigrant women in Europe. This is what we also ask from the Member States. Immigration is a reality in Europe today and will certainly be so in the future.
There is a consensus at the policy making level that in all policy areas, from tackling the demographic changes to enhancing the social cohesion of our society, immigration needs to be seen as part of the solution and not of the problem. Our development and social cohesion goals are directly linked to our capacity to adequately manage migratory fluxes, by integrating immigrants in our societies. In order to be properly integrated, immigrant men and women need to be adequately informed of our society's values, of their rights and obligations. Integrating immigrant women is even more so important since they will be the ones raising the second generation of immigrants in Europe: they are the ones that can help us integrate immigrant children, by transmitting at the same time their traditional values and the ones that Europe offers. Their integration requires furthering gender mainstreaming in our policies for social cohesion, human rights, employment as well as intercultural dialogue.
Since however integration is a two-way procedure, we need to cooperate further with the countries of origin of the immigrants as well as their communities in Europe so that their integration is as smooth as possible. Let's not forget that in quite a few immigrant communities in Europe, women are also victims of systematic violence, genital mutilation, forced weddings and even "honour crimes". Since these issues can only be addressed adequately in the original communities of future immigrants, the EU should try to tackle these issues in their root, through its association and cooperation agreements with third countries. And that highlights also the role that women leaders worldwide should play; they are the ones that should put pressure on their governments so as to honour their national and international commitments and to hold them accountable in case they don't do so. Women in power should never forget the millions of women being discriminated, tortured, marginalized both home and abroad; these women need their leaders to highlight their problems, strive to tackle them and provide them with opportunities of socio-political participation and prosperity.
iKNOW Politics: You were a founder and a president of the European Centre for Communication and Information in Athens. As someone who has expertise in the communications field and as a woman leader, do you think there are stereotypes in media against women in politics? If yes, how should these stereotypes be addressed? What should women leaders and candidates do while facing such challenges?
Apart from founding the European Centre for Communication, I also had the honour to be a founding member and Vice-President of the Greek Committee for the European Movement in Greece, and to be a Founding member and the current President of the International Association for the Promotion of Women of Europe, which delivers the "Woman of Europe" award. My overall experience obtained in the civil society has made me acutely aware of the fact that gender stereotypes are still omnipresent in the press and media, and they do not only concern women in politics but also women in science, sports or the arts, ultimately also women in the civil society itself.
One has a feeling that it is often implied that women should limit themselves in dealing with women's rights rather than participate integrally in all sectors of our society. In particular, the issue of stereotypes in advertising and media was recently the subject of an own-initiative report of our Women's Rights Committee. The report highlights the need to develop awareness against degrading images of women and men in advertising and marketing, and recommends that broadcasters, publishers and advertisers adopt a more responsible attitude towards the depiction of women and men. In this regard, equality prizes in the media market could be helpful in breaking with gender stereotypes. What we need is to strike a delicate balance between the need to adequately enhance equality between men and women in the media and advertising world and the need to protect the media world's freedom of speech.
Ultimately, the focus should be cast on school education and family upbringing, since overcoming stereotypes can only be efficient if it starts at a very early age of boys and girls. The media world needs to understand that we are not trying to obliterate the obvious existing differences between men and women, physical, psychological or social. We are trying to eliminate depictions of women and men that render our equality policies less efficient. Women leaders could do a lot to help address these stereotypes, by making sure how their own image gets through in the media. Attention should be also paid by them not to create new stereotypes, like the one of "iron ladies"; if we women leaders need to abandon our femininity so as to get our message through and be taken seriously, then we have already lost the game of diversity and equality in our society.
iKNOW Politics: How do you think an initiative like iKNOW Politics can be used to promote the advancement of women in the political arena? Would you have benefited from having such an online network earlier in your career?
It is common place that women in all aspects of life, political, social and economic, face obstacles in trying to get their message through. In this regard, given that in our constantly globalizing world physical barriers never cease to fall, what better means of assisting women in overcoming these barriers and obstacles than through information technology? This is why I did not hesitate to host the pan-European launch of the iKNOW Politics initiative in the European Parliament; I believe it indeed has the potential to allow women from all over the world to build networks, to pool and exchange best practices, to ask questions, to express their solidarity, in other words to help each other.
If we want to render our efforts more efficient and promote a balanced participation of men and women in all aspects of society, then we need not only a firm political will and proactive legislative measures, but also channels and networks allowing for a modern interactive communication. Needless to point out, after all, that IT options are being increasingly used in modern politics; let's not forget how much video web streaming through YouTube and social networks like Facebook were used in the last US presidential campaign. I am confident that this network can prove to be useful not only to women in European politics but everywhere in the world, and, above all, it will allow for the cross border cooperation of women across the world.
iKNOW Politics: What piece of advice would you share with iKNOW Politics members, particularly women candidates and officials, as they progress in their political careers?
First of all, please allow me to clarify that I consider my testimony and advice no more useful than that of the hundreds of iKNOW Politics members with expertise on the field or on the grass-roots level. Nevertheless, my advice to them would be that they should make the most of the possibilities offered by iKNOW Politics and of any other means available for networking and exchanging best practices. As a practitioner of European politics I can confirm that there is indeed power in unity.
My specific advice to the women that hold already high posts in governments and administrations is not to forget their original aspirations and the goals they had once set at their beginning of their career. Let us not forget that women are ultimately human beings and therefore not immune to the temptations of power. Women empowerment is not merely an issue of statistics and women leaders should not hide behind the safety net of quotas; they should not think only about their career but also about how they could actively promote women participation in general. We need women in the right places alright; but many more women and in fact women that think, vote, govern and act like women.
"Championing women's rights around the world is ultimately about forging solidarity between women and about trying to remove all these barriers and obstacles in the participation of women in political, social and economic life.” - Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou
iKNOW Politics: As a woman in a leadership position, what challenges have you faced in entering politics in Greece and in becoming Vice President of the European Parliament? Has it been difficult to meet the expectations, workload and pressure that your mandate entails?
Greece, as most Mediterranean countries, lags behind in women's participation in politics, something due to a great extent to the traditional social structure and to gender stereotypes. The political environment is not hostile towards women's participation in public affairs but it is not encouraging or supportive either.
I would say that neither the problems a woman faces nor the importance of female participation in politics are properly understood. Facing these challenges requires from a woman a firm personal choice, strong will and her commitment to pursue a leading role in politics and society. Any doubts will eventually clear up step by step as a woman leader advances in her political career and makes concrete progress in Greece or elsewhere. Compared to Greek politics, my experience in the European Parliament was different.
In our House it is crystal clear that colleagues, male or female, are judged upon the basis of their merits alone. Women in Parliament are not treated as a minority, but on the contrary they have a strong presence, both in numbers and as reflected by the quality of their work in many policy areas. Let's not forget after all that Simone Veil was the first President of the directly elected European Parliament in 1979. In trying to meet my colleagues' expectations and to tackle the considerable workload of Parliament's plenary sessions and Bureau, gender mainstreaming has been only one of my concerns, which include the delicate balances between the political groups, the disparities between the political cultures of Member States and the dual role of Parliament as a political body and an administration.
iKNOW Politics: As member of the Committee on Women’s rights and gender equality, and as chair of the European Parliament’s High-level group on gender equality, you are working on the integration of gender mainstreaming in European legislation and institutions, including the European Parliament itself. Which efforts do you think are necessary to make this effort successful, within the European Parliament itself, within Europe and the European Institutions and also in relation to the EU’s policies that want to have an impact beyond the European Union?
The European Parliament has been committed to pursuing gender equality from the very beginning of its 50-year political history both in house and in Europe as a whole. It is worth noting in this regard that today in the European Parliament we have a constantly increasing number both of women MEPs and of women holding high profile positions: we currently have 5 female Vice-Presidents, 2 female Quaestors, 2 female Chairs of political groups and 6 women chairing parliamentary Committees and Sub-Committees. Furthermore, further to the arrival of our Romanian and Bulgarian colleagues, the percentage of women Members of the EP has risen at 39%.
At the same time, the European Parliament, as an administration, has adopted policies of affirmative action aiming at establishing a gender balance in its staff. Currently, women represent the 61% of Parliament's personnel and hold approximately 25% of decision making and management posts. The High-Level Group which I'm honored to chair was established by the Bureau in 2004 as a follow-up to Parliament's 2003 Resolution on Gender Mainstreaming in the European Parliament.
The Group monitors gender mainstreaming in EP activities across the board: committee work, budget, and information and communication policy. During the current parliamentary term, the Group has mainly focused on mainstreaming gender issues in the work of parliamentary committees, staff policy and gender-neutral language. The European Parliament, as a political body, has repeatedly drafted reports, supported initiatives, approved funds and voted in favour of resolutions asking for a balanced participation of men and women in all instances of decision making. In addition, it constantly calls on the other institutions, namely the Council and the European Commission, to enhance gender mainstreaming across the board, from peace building missions and development cooperation to gender budgeting in Structural Funds and cohesion policy and to the special attention needed for women in rural areas of Europe.
Parliament's intervention is therefore twofold, firstly passing gender and equality legislation and secondly shaping political orientations in order to facilitate and participate in the ongoing political debate on the gender and equality agenda in Europe. Coming back to your question, what needs to be done is to rigorously monitor the implementation of the EU equality legislation by the Member States and the institutions themselves, to call on the Council and the Commission to follow-up on Parliament's resolutions in this regard, and to fine-tune our relevant policies and financial instruments so as to assure their coherence, complementarity and efficiency.
iKNOW Politics: You are responsible for the European Parliament’s Euro-Mediterranean relations and you have won the Euro-Med Award for the Dialogue between Cultures in 2007. Can you tell our readers how your work in this capacity has contributed to the protection of women’s rights in the region and their promotion in public life?
I have the honor to serve as the Vice-President responsible for both Gender Equality and the Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation. Wearing these two hats has allowed me to follow closely the progress in the field of women's rights in our Mediterranean neighbor countries. In addition, I had the honor to contribute in the setting up of the Women's Committee of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly (EMPA) and to proudly serve as its Vice-President until last June.
This enabled me to forge strong and mutually fruitful relations with my counterparts from the southern Mediterranean, and to enjoy a privileged partnership with key women policymakers and stakeholders in the Middle East. During my frequent missions and visits in the Middle East and the Mediterranean countries, meeting women representatives and stakeholders from the local societies has been always a priority.
These two different aspects of my parliamentary career have helped me realize that, despite the irrefutable disparities between the situation of women in Europe and that of women in developing countries, the challenges lying ahead of them are altogether the same: under-representation in economic and political life, pay gap between men and women, gender discriminations, difficulties in trying to reconcile private and professional life. It goes without saying, nevertheless, that women in the Middle East and Arab world face additional obstacles and problems, for instance pertaining to their legal status or to the consequences of an arbitral or archaic interpretation of religious rules and practices. Let us not forget that in some countries women ambassadors and ministers still need to be escorted by their husband when travelling abroad on official visits and missions.
Championing women's rights around the world is ultimately about forging solidarity between women and about trying to remove all these barriers and obstacles in the participation of women in political, social and economic life. And overcoming obstacles requires the building of bridges between European women and women of the southern Mediterranean; even virtual bridges like the ones that iKNOW Politics can help build. Recently we had one more chance to realize how fruitful the networking and exchange of views can be between women from the North and the South.
In the framework of the Arab week that was held in the European Parliament, we organized a very interesting and enlightening exchange of views focusing on the role of women in the Arab world, both Maghreb and Mashreq, and also the situation of Arab women who have immigrated in Europe. The major conclusion of this event was that the political empowerment of women in the Mediterranean countries presupposes a fundamental change in their personal and family status, which can only be achieved through a change in mentalities, legal and social reforms, and ultimately more democracy.
iKNOW Politics: In 2006, you submitted a report to the European Parliament on the role and place of immigrant women in the EU. Based on your report, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling the member states to promote access of immigrant women to economic, political, social and cultural life in the host country as well as take actions in combating violations of rights of such women and girls. From this experience, what do you think women leaders worldwide should do to empower women and secure their rights?
The aim of our report was to highlight the number of problems that immigrant women face upon arriving in Europe and their conditions of living and integrating in the European Union. In this regard, it is worth noting that we often lack reliable and up-to-date statistics on immigrant women. We nevertheless estimate that they account for 4% of the total EU population and 54 % of immigrants in Europe. The main problems they face concern discriminations in employment and social marginalization.
The employment rate of legal immigrant women is only 44% and only 17 % of them acquire higher education. In addition, they suffer from multiple discriminations, based on gender, ethnic origin, language, religion. Special attention should be given to the opportunities of immigrant women to integrate in professional life, especially of those that arrive in Europe on the basis of family reunification. This is why we stressed in our report that Directive 2003/86/EC has not yet been satisfactorily implemented by all Member States, leaving substantial scope for discriminatory treatment of women immigrants.
It is worth noting that our report was adopted at a vast majority and that the then responsible Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, Mr. Franco Frattini welcomed our suggestions and promised to integrate them into the Commission's policies in the field. This means that on the European level there is the political will to address the issues of immigrant women in Europe. This is what we also ask from the Member States. Immigration is a reality in Europe today and will certainly be so in the future.
There is a consensus at the policy making level that in all policy areas, from tackling the demographic changes to enhancing the social cohesion of our society, immigration needs to be seen as part of the solution and not of the problem. Our development and social cohesion goals are directly linked to our capacity to adequately manage migratory fluxes, by integrating immigrants in our societies. In order to be properly integrated, immigrant men and women need to be adequately informed of our society's values, of their rights and obligations. Integrating immigrant women is even more so important since they will be the ones raising the second generation of immigrants in Europe: they are the ones that can help us integrate immigrant children, by transmitting at the same time their traditional values and the ones that Europe offers. Their integration requires furthering gender mainstreaming in our policies for social cohesion, human rights, employment as well as intercultural dialogue.
Since however integration is a two-way procedure, we need to cooperate further with the countries of origin of the immigrants as well as their communities in Europe so that their integration is as smooth as possible. Let's not forget that in quite a few immigrant communities in Europe, women are also victims of systematic violence, genital mutilation, forced weddings and even "honour crimes". Since these issues can only be addressed adequately in the original communities of future immigrants, the EU should try to tackle these issues in their root, through its association and cooperation agreements with third countries. And that highlights also the role that women leaders worldwide should play; they are the ones that should put pressure on their governments so as to honour their national and international commitments and to hold them accountable in case they don't do so. Women in power should never forget the millions of women being discriminated, tortured, marginalized both home and abroad; these women need their leaders to highlight their problems, strive to tackle them and provide them with opportunities of socio-political participation and prosperity.
iKNOW Politics: You were a founder and a president of the European Centre for Communication and Information in Athens. As someone who has expertise in the communications field and as a woman leader, do you think there are stereotypes in media against women in politics? If yes, how should these stereotypes be addressed? What should women leaders and candidates do while facing such challenges?
Apart from founding the European Centre for Communication, I also had the honour to be a founding member and Vice-President of the Greek Committee for the European Movement in Greece, and to be a Founding member and the current President of the International Association for the Promotion of Women of Europe, which delivers the "Woman of Europe" award. My overall experience obtained in the civil society has made me acutely aware of the fact that gender stereotypes are still omnipresent in the press and media, and they do not only concern women in politics but also women in science, sports or the arts, ultimately also women in the civil society itself.
One has a feeling that it is often implied that women should limit themselves in dealing with women's rights rather than participate integrally in all sectors of our society. In particular, the issue of stereotypes in advertising and media was recently the subject of an own-initiative report of our Women's Rights Committee. The report highlights the need to develop awareness against degrading images of women and men in advertising and marketing, and recommends that broadcasters, publishers and advertisers adopt a more responsible attitude towards the depiction of women and men. In this regard, equality prizes in the media market could be helpful in breaking with gender stereotypes. What we need is to strike a delicate balance between the need to adequately enhance equality between men and women in the media and advertising world and the need to protect the media world's freedom of speech.
Ultimately, the focus should be cast on school education and family upbringing, since overcoming stereotypes can only be efficient if it starts at a very early age of boys and girls. The media world needs to understand that we are not trying to obliterate the obvious existing differences between men and women, physical, psychological or social. We are trying to eliminate depictions of women and men that render our equality policies less efficient. Women leaders could do a lot to help address these stereotypes, by making sure how their own image gets through in the media. Attention should be also paid by them not to create new stereotypes, like the one of "iron ladies"; if we women leaders need to abandon our femininity so as to get our message through and be taken seriously, then we have already lost the game of diversity and equality in our society.
iKNOW Politics: How do you think an initiative like iKNOW Politics can be used to promote the advancement of women in the political arena? Would you have benefited from having such an online network earlier in your career?
It is common place that women in all aspects of life, political, social and economic, face obstacles in trying to get their message through. In this regard, given that in our constantly globalizing world physical barriers never cease to fall, what better means of assisting women in overcoming these barriers and obstacles than through information technology? This is why I did not hesitate to host the pan-European launch of the iKNOW Politics initiative in the European Parliament; I believe it indeed has the potential to allow women from all over the world to build networks, to pool and exchange best practices, to ask questions, to express their solidarity, in other words to help each other.
If we want to render our efforts more efficient and promote a balanced participation of men and women in all aspects of society, then we need not only a firm political will and proactive legislative measures, but also channels and networks allowing for a modern interactive communication. Needless to point out, after all, that IT options are being increasingly used in modern politics; let's not forget how much video web streaming through YouTube and social networks like Facebook were used in the last US presidential campaign. I am confident that this network can prove to be useful not only to women in European politics but everywhere in the world, and, above all, it will allow for the cross border cooperation of women across the world.
iKNOW Politics: What piece of advice would you share with iKNOW Politics members, particularly women candidates and officials, as they progress in their political careers?
First of all, please allow me to clarify that I consider my testimony and advice no more useful than that of the hundreds of iKNOW Politics members with expertise on the field or on the grass-roots level. Nevertheless, my advice to them would be that they should make the most of the possibilities offered by iKNOW Politics and of any other means available for networking and exchanging best practices. As a practitioner of European politics I can confirm that there is indeed power in unity.
My specific advice to the women that hold already high posts in governments and administrations is not to forget their original aspirations and the goals they had once set at their beginning of their career. Let us not forget that women are ultimately human beings and therefore not immune to the temptations of power. Women empowerment is not merely an issue of statistics and women leaders should not hide behind the safety net of quotas; they should not think only about their career but also about how they could actively promote women participation in general. We need women in the right places alright; but many more women and in fact women that think, vote, govern and act like women.