Poland

Meant to bring everyday Europeans closer to the E.U. institutions that govern them in distant Brussels, the direct democracy experiment allows citizens to sling their concerns onto the E.U. agenda. The principle is simple: if campaigners muster 1 million signatures for a proposal, they can ask the European Commission, the E.U.'s executive branch, to write new legislation. The new system has received a cautious welcome from Europeans.

In an unprecedented development, the main political parties in Kosovo have joined together and agreed on a new president.Their choice was the deputy director of the Kosovo police, General Major Atifete Jahjaga. Following parliament's vote Thursday evening (April 7th), she becomes Kosovo's first female head of state.

To read the complete article please visit SETimes.com

European Parliament MEPs demanded that gender mainstreaming must be implemented in the EU cohesion policy in a mini-hearing with external experts on Gender Mainstreaming in the EU Cohesion Policy organised by the Committee on Regional Development on Tuesday, 13 April 2011.

Constanze Krehl (S&D, DE) pointed to the tough struggle to get the gender aspect into the cohesion policy horizontally. "Unless we really make an effort and implement it we will not see any changes", she stressed, adding that in 2015 or 2016 the same debate would start over again.

The European Women’s Lobby (EWL), calls on the Polish Presidency to continue to be a driving force for women’s rights in Europe and, in particular, to ensure progress in the adoption of gender-related legislation which is currently on the table, to ensure the full integration of a women’s rights and gender equality perspective in all European social and economic policies, including strands of the Europe2020 Strategy and to make sure that in the context of the negotiations of the new Multi Annual Framework 2014+, adequate and sustainable funding is allocated to activities related to human r

The European Parliament on Wednesday (6 July) advised EU businesses to hire women in their executive boards by next year or face a mandatory quota of 40 percent modelled on the Norwegian experience.

Women should make up 30 percent of top management in the largest listed EU companies by 2015 and 40 percent by 2020, MEPs said in Strasbourg in a non-binding recommendation. If voluntary measures to increase female representation fail to work by next year, then the European Commission must table legislation to make it binding, they added.

Ewa Kopacz had become Poland’s first woman who has been elected as Speaker of the Sejm (Polish Parliament- lower house)

A candidate for the Civic Platform party led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Kopacz, a pediatrician, won 300 votes out of  the 453.

To read the complete article in Russian please visit The voice of Russia website.

The first transsexual member of the Polish parliament will be sworn in today

The members of the European Parliament will vote on 17 January on who should be their president for the next 30 months. Although the Parliament is fond of speaking about democracy, its internal procedures are not transparent, and women are still largely absent from its leading positions.

Currently women hold 35% of the seats in the EP. The European Parliament had had 13 president, and only two of those have been women.

During a debate to improve the number of women in top positions, EU ministers gave the green light to Commission vice-president Viviane Reding “to do something” to boost gender balance, which is "good for business."

“Everyone agreed that there is a problem in women’s participation at the top level of companies. There was unanimity that we need to do something,” said Viviane Reding in a statement after the meeting of European ministers for employment and social affairs on Friday (17 February).