Doc. 9870

9 July 2003

Gender-balanced representation
in the Parliamentary Assembly

Report

Committee on Rules of Procedure and Immunities

Rapporteur : M. Kroupa, Czech Republic, EPP/CD

Summary

A longstanding concern of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is to increase the representation of women in its midst. It feels that the time has come to take new initiatives in favour of a better-balanced gender representation in the national delegations to the Assembly. Furthermore, it considers that the principle of gender equality should be better respected in the composition of the Bureaux of Assembly committees and sub-committees and at the level of Assembly Vice-Presidents.

II.       Explanatory memorandum by the Rapporteur

A.       Introduction

1.       On 26 September 2001, Mrs Zwerver and several of her colleagues, tabled a motion for a resolution on gender-balanced representation in the Assembly (Doc. 9238). On 8 November 2001, it was referred by the Standing Committee to the Committee on Rules of Procedure and Immunities and, for opinion, to the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men (Reference No. 2658). Mrs Akgönenç (Turkey, European Democratic Group) was appointed as rapporteur and on several occasions, the Committee on Rules of Procedure and Immunities discussed the matter. Furthermore, on 26 June 2002 Mrs Akgönenç held an exchange of views with the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men. In January 2003 Mrs Akgönenç left the Assembly and a new rapporteur was appointed. The present report contains general considerations on gender dimension in the Council of Europe, recalls the situation in some other international parliamentary institutions and finally submits proposals for the attention of various Assembly bodies and for changes of the Parliamentary Assembly’s Rules of Procedure.

B.       Gender dimension in the Council of Europe and its Parliamentary Assembly

2.       The global movement toward gender parity has changed the status of women in society. In its Universal Declaration on Democracy, the Interparliamentary Union affirmed in 1997 that "The achievement of democracy presupposes a genuine partnership between men and women in the conduct of the affairs of society in which they work in equality and complementarity, drawing mutual enrichment from their differences.”

3.       In the work of the Council of Europe equality between women and men occupies a favourite place. Art. 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) stipulates that “the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, ...”. Article 1 of Protocol No. 12 to the ECHR offers additional guarantees, when specifying that “the enjoyment of any right set forth by law shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race,...”.

The European Social Charter and its 1988 additional Protocol and the Revised European Social Charter guarantee non-discrimination in employment.

4.       As so often, the Parliamentary Assembly took the lead for gender equality in the Council of Europe by presenting proposals to the Committee of Ministers on the legal position of women in the 70s. Since 1981, the promotion of equality is one of the main principles of the Council of Europe’s intergovernmental work. The activities are organised within two programmes:

-       gender mainstreaming;

-       promoting balanced participation of women and men.

The setting up in 1992 of the Steering Committee for equality between women and men (CDEG) demonstrated that this issue constituted a priority for the Organisation.

5.       A longstanding Assembly concern is to increase the representation of women in its midst. In its Resolution 606 (1975) the Assembly urged the parliaments of member States to recognise the talents of all their members irrespective of sex, when forming their delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly.

Assembly Resolution 1079 (1996) on increased representation of women in the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, considers that when some national delegations include no women at all or include a much smaller percentage of women than is present in their national parliament, such a situation is incompatible with the principle of equality between the sexes.

In its Recommendation 1413 (1999) on equal representation in political life, the Assembly invited its national delegations to introduce specific measures to correct the under-representation of women in political life.

6.       In 1993, the Bureau of the Assembly created an ad hoc Committee on Equality of the Sexes. In January 1998, the Assembly set up the current Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men (Resolution 1144 (1998). Its terms of reference include the following aspects:

One of the reasons for the setting up of this Committee was precisely the importance attached to equal opportunities for women and men as a prerequisite for genuine democracy.

7.       The Council of Europe’s intergovernmental organs also are actively promoting gender balanced participation of men and women in political and public decision-making. On 12 March 2003 the Committee of Ministers adopted Recommendation Rec(2003) 3 to member states on this subject.

8.       The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe promotes women’s participation in political life in the regions and local authorities of Europe (see Resolution 85 and Recommendation 68 (1999) of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe).

9.       There are currently no formal Rules in the Assembly concerning the representation of women in national parliamentary delegations1. At present (25 June 2003) the Assembly has a percentage of 19.4% of female members (119 out of 612 effective members). Six national parliamentary delegations include no women. About 45% of the Assembly’s women parliamentarians are full members and 55% substitutes.

10.       It is interesting to note that the afore-mentioned Recommendation R (2003) 3 of the Committee of Ministers proposes to consider the percentage of women and men in national delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly as one of the indicators for measuring progress in the field of political and public decision-making.

C.       Situation in other international parliamentary institutions

11.       Practically all international parliamentary institutions try by different means to increase the representation of female members in their midst.

On 26 February 2003, the European Parliament (EP) published a report on gender mainstreaming in the EP (Doc. A5-60/2003). This report and the resolution adopted by the EP on 13 March 2003 propose, inter alia, the setting up of a high-level Group on gender equality and increasing the representation of women on the European Parliament’s governing bodies, on the bureau of committees and delegations and other posts of responsibility in the composition of delegations and in such missions as election observation.

At their last joint meeting on 26 September 2002 the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men of the Parliamentary Assembly and the Committee on Women’s rights and Equal Opportunities of the European Parliament agreed to promote parity representation of women in the European Parliament and in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

On 13 May 2003, the Chair of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities of the European Parliament, Mrs Anna Karamanou, expressed her regret that women were underrepresented in the observers’ delegations of acceding States to the European Union and completely absent from the Slovenian and Estonian delegations.

12.       Article 10.1. of the Statutes of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) specifies that "The (Inter-Parliamentary) Conference shall be composed of parliamentarians designated as delegates by the Members of the Union, including if possible, at least one woman if the Member has women parliamentarians.”

The Gender Partnership Group of the IPU presented proposals at the IPU Conference in Havana (2001) to amend the Union’s Statutes in order to remedy the weak participation of women to IPU conferences and in the Union’s governing bodies and standing committees. The Gender Partnership Group proposes in particular that those national delegations which fail to include at least one woman should be exposed to sanctions. They will automatically be reduced by one member and the number of votes to which they are entitled at the IPU Conference will also be diminished. The delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly to the IPU has supported these proposals. They were submitted to the Council of the IPU which together with a sub-amendment approved them at its Geneva special Session on 27 September 2002. The 108th IPU Conference held on 11 April 2003 adopted these proposals.

It is also to be noted in this context that the IPU set up in 1978 a parliamentary caucus of women.

D.       Recommendations and proposals for rule changes

a.       A minimum 30% representation of women in national delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly

13.       The motion for a resolution tabled by Mrs Zwerver and her colleagues (Doc. 9238) proposes first that by means of the Assembly’s Rules and the procedure for ratifying credentials of national delegations a fair gender representation in national delegations should be ensured, namely a minimum of 30%. As is shown in the tables of the Appendix, 15 of the 45 national delegations include 30% or a higher percentage of women. Another 12 delegations count between 20 and 28% of women. On the other side, 12 delegations have less than 9% of women and 6 of these delegations have no female representative at all. Fortunately, there are no longer parliaments in Europe without any women members.2 At world level, the percentage of the parliamentarians who are women, amounted to 15.2% in May 2003.

14.       It has to be borne in mind that in addition to the political affiliation of members, the composition of national delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly depends of other criteria, for example:

-       in case of a bicameral parliament, distribution of seats among both chambers;

-       in federal States, balance between representatives of the different entities;

-       in States with more than one official language, linguistic balance.

15.       All these factors will make it difficult for certain national delegations to include as a minimum as despite the repeated calls from the Parliamentary Assembly since at least 1975, the number of female members in the Assembly has not increased sufficiently. Statistics show that this is a long process which regularly needs fresh impetus.

The percentages of women parliamentarians in the Parliamentary Assembly were as follows. September 1975: 6.1%; October 1985: 7.9%; October 1992: 11.3%; September 1997: 15.6%; August 2002: 20.07%, 25 June 2003: 19.4%.

By comparison, the European Parliament had 31.5% of women members (17.5% in 1979).

Your rapporteur also considers that a 30% quota for women representation is justified. The Assembly already had an occasion to express itself on this target. In its Recommendation 1413 (1999) on equal representation in political life, it underlined that in certain member states it had turned out that a level of 30% of women in political bodies constitutes a critical mass which has an impact on politics. Beyond this threshold, clear qualitative progress could be seen and women could free themselves of the male model of exercising power, to bring their own vision. This is also the view of the Interparliamentary Union (IPU)

It is to be noted that Recommendation R (2003) 3 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on balanced representation of women and men in political and public decision-making defines as a balanced participation of women and men a minimum of 40% representation of each sex in any such decision-making body. This is also in accordance with a European Parliament resolution of 18 January 2001.

16.       The Committee on Rules of Procedure and Immunities should also propose that single-gender delegations in the Parliamentary Assembly should no longer exist. This could also become a political condition for membership of the Council of Europe and be the subject of the Assembly’s procedure for monitoring commitments by new member States. It is to be welcomed that this matter was already raised in paragraph 21 of Assembly Resolution 1304 (2002) on honouring of obligations and commitments by Armenia. This text explicitly recommends to promote gender parity in the Armenian Parliament.

17.       Currently, the fundamental principle governing the composition of national delegations is that, insofar as the number of their members allows, they “ should be composed so as to ensure a fair representation of the political parties or groups in their parliaments.” (Rule 6.2. of the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure). These political groups or parties therefore have a decisive function for the appointment of Assembly members. However, your rapporteur considers that for practical reasons it should be left to the national parliaments to ensure an adequate representation of women in the Parliamentary Assembly. To this end a three-fold action is proposed. National parliaments should be invited to:

Rule 6.2. of the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure should be adapted accordingly.

b.       Possibility to challenge credentials of delegations, which do not conform to the afore-mentioned requirements

18.       The signatories of the afore-mentioned motion for a resolution (Doc. 9238) suggested that if the proposed Rule changes on women representation were not respected, this should allow Assembly members to challenge the credentials.

19.       While fully supporting this idea, your rapporteur has to take account of the strong reservations made by several members during the meetings of the Committee on Rules of Procedure and Immunities on 24 April and 25 June 2002. One of the arguments advanced was that the Assembly should first promote that all delegations include 30% of women parliamentarians before allowing a challenge of the credentials on the ground of insufficient women representation. Other considerations raised were that:

-       smaller parliaments had difficulties to find the necessary compromises on the composition of their delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly;

-       some national political parties appointed only one member to the delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly.

This made it difficult to respect additional criteria such as a women’s quota.

20.       In these circumstances, your rapporteur should like to present the following proposals to the Committee on Rules of Procedure and Immunities. The possibility of challenging credentials of national delegations on which women are inadequately represented should be limited to those cases where national parliaments present to the Parliamentary Assembly the credentials of single-gender delegations for ratification. This would require a corresponding change of Rule 7.1.b. of the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure. Your rapporteur considers that more far-reaching possibilities for contesting credentials of parliamentary delegations with unbalanced gender-representation should be delayed until the situation regarding the presence of women in the parliaments of Council of Europe member States has improved.

21.       This would not prevent the President or the Secretary General of the Parliamentary Assembly to take political action (like sending a letter to the Speaker or Secretary General of a national parliament) if a national delegation included women in a much lower percentage, as is the case in the respective national parliament.

22.       What would be the consequences of challenged credentials on the grounds of insufficient women representation on a national parliamentary delegation ? One solution could be to postpone ratification of credentials until a delegation is represented including at least one woman. To this end a deadline could be set. Until these conditions are met, members of the delegation concerned would sit provisionally on the Assembly (see Rule 7.4. of the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure). In the light of the committee’s discussion, your rapporteur would deepen these aspects.

23.       The draft resolution also invites national parliaments to provide together with the transmission of credentials, information on the number of women parliamentarians.

24.       Furthermore, a review clause should be integrated in the draft resolution contained in this report, which instructs the Committee on Rules of Procedure and Immunities and the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men to re-examine the situation of gender representation in the Parliamentary Assembly in two years time. If necessary, a new report could be presented to the Assembly or the Standing Committee. In case gender representation in the Assembly did not progress sufficiently by then, the co-operation of political groups of the Parliamentary Assembly could be ensured. They could then invite the national political parties they represent to take appropriate action when the national delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly are elected.

c.       Respect of the principle of gender equality in the composition of the Bureaux of committees and at the level of Vice-Presidents of the Assembly

25.       The motion for a resolution tabled by Mrs Zwerver and others (Doc. 9238) proposed that the gender balance principle be taken into account for the composition of the Bureaux of Assembly committees. If the representation of women in the national delegations to the Assembly is strengthened, it would be coherent to ensure greater observance of gender equality in the composition of the Bureaux of Committees. In 2003 four (2002: three) of the ten committee Chairpersons and fourteen (2002: eleven) of the thirty committee Vice-Chairpersons, were women. Although the situation has improved since 2002, your rapporteur supports the proposal to add in Rule 45.1. of the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure the need to take into account the principle of gender equality. As the designations to the Bureaux of Committees are made by the Assembly’s political groups, the Assembly should address to them an invitation to respect the principle of gender equality for their proposals of candidates.

26.       Similar considerations apply to sub-committees where also both in 2002 and 2003 a limited number of women (five out of 36 possibilities in 2003) were elected as chairpersons or vice-chairpersons. However, it is to be noted, that differently from full committees, the Bureaux of sub-committees are not elected on the basis of designations made by political groups. Therefore, any appeal to improve the current situation should be addressed to the full committees.

27.       It is also to be noted that in 2003 from the 19 Vice-Presidents of the Assembly, two are women parliamentarians (4 in 2002). According to Rule 14.3. of the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure proposals for Assembly Vice-Presidents are made by the chairpersons of national delegations concerned on behalf of that delegation. The following words should therefore be added to Rule 14.3. : “while taking into account the principle of gender equality”.

d.       Taking into account of gender dimension in the reports prepared by Assembly committees and in all resolutions, recommendations and orders

28.       Your rapporteur, while supporting the proposal in the aforementioned motion (Doc. 9238) that Assembly reports should deal more frequently with the gender dimension and that this should also be reflected in the draft texts adopted subsequently by the Assembly, has some hesitations with respect to the inclusion of such a principle in the Rules.

29.       Currently the Rules do not contain any information concerning work principles and priorities of the Assembly. For example, when following the adoption of Assembly Order No. 537 (1998) the Bureau fixed priorities for the work of the Assembly, they were not included in the Rules.

30.       For the time being it would be sufficient that the draft resolution contained in this report underlines the need to better ensure that all reports prepared by committees take gender dimension into consideration and that this should be reflected in all resolutions, recommendations and orders. Furthermore, an appeal should be launched to appointing more women members as rapporteurs. The October 2002 edition of the survey “Reports under preparation in the committees of the Parliamentary Assembly” shows that about 30% of the rapporteurs appointed are women members.

e.       Reasons for unbalanced gender representation in national parliaments

31.       At the meetings of the Committee on Rules of Procedure and Immunities on 25 June 2002 and 25 June 2003, and of the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men on 26 June 2002, several members expressed themselves on the reasons of inadequate women’s representation in parliaments. Some members considered that this was due to cultural settings (see the reasons given in Doc. 9629 and in CM (2003) 23 add.) or to the insufficient availability of women for a parliamentary mandate. Others felt that this was the result of lacking positive action (quotas) for women and other relevant measures, for instance at legislative level, to change laws that still impede women from equal participation in elections. Furthermore, there is a strong relationship between electoral systems and the number of women in parliaments. Finally, it was observed that participation in international parliamentary institutions such as the Parliamentary Assembly, obliged members to spend at least one month a year abroad.

As was underlined in connection with the International Women’s Day 2003, modern societies will only be more humane and equitable when all their citizens are actively involved in the decision-making process.

32.       Recommendation Rec(2003) 3 of the Committee of Ministers on balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision-making and its explanatory memorandum contain a section on “supportive measures”.

33.       As a consequence of these discussions your rapporteur proposes that the draft resolution contained in this report launches an appeal for contributing by means of education and the mass-media to a more balanced gender representation in parliaments.

E.       Final remarks

34.       The Assembly is invited to examine and adopt the draft resolution contained in this report. The proposed new Rules would enter into force at the opening of the January 2004 part-session.

APPENDIX

REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN THE NATIONAL

PARLIAMENTARY DELEGATIONS TO THE PACE

AND IN NATIONAL PARLIAMENTS3 (as at 31 May 2003)

Parliamentary Assembly

National Parliaments

COUNTRY

Total

statutory

number of Members

(in brackets

effective

figure)

Delegation

Percentage

of Women

in the

Parliamentary

Assembly

Percentage

of women

in the national single

Chamber

Parliament or in the Lower Chamber

Percentage

of women

in the

national

Second

Chamber

or

Senate

Men

Women

ALBANIA

8

6

2

25.00

5.70

-

ANDORRA

4

3

1

25.00

14.30

-

ARMENIA

8

8

0

0

5.40

-

AUSTRIA

12

7

5

41.66

33.90

21.00

AZERBAIJAN

12

10

2

16.66

10.50

-

BELGIUM

14

13

1

7.14

35.30

28.20

BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA

10

8

2

20.00

16.70

0

BULGARIA

12

10

2

16.66

26.20

-

CROATIA

10

5

5

50.00

20.50

6.20

CYPRUS

6 (4)

3

1

25.00

10.70

-

CZECH REPUBLIC

14

11

3

21.44

17.00

12.30

DENMARK

10

5

5

50.00

38.00

-

ESTONIA

6

4

2

33.33

18.80

-

FINLAND

10

5

5

50.00

37.50

-

FRANCE

36

35

1

2.78

12.20

10.90

GEORGIA

10

7

3

30.00

7.20

-

GERMANY

36

25

11

30.55

32.20

24.6

GREECE

14

11

3

21.42

8.70

-

HUNGARY

14

11

3

21.42

9.80

-

ICELAND

6

4

2

33.33

30.20

-

IRELAND

8

8

0

0

13.30

16.70

ITALY

36

32

4

11.11

11.50

8.10

LATVIA

6

3

3

50.00

21.00

-

LIECHTENSTEIN

4

3

1

25.00

12.00

-

LITHUANIA

8

6

2

25.00

10.60

-

LUXEMBOURG

6

4

2

33.33

16.70

-

MALTA

6

6

0

0

9.20

-

MOLDOVA

10

8

2

20.00

12.90

-

NETHERLANDS

14

12

2

14.28

36.70

26.70

NORWAY

10

7

3

30.00

36.40

-

POLAND

24

19

5

20.83

20.20

23.00

PORTUGAL

14

10

4

28.57

19.10

-

ROMANIA

20

19

1

5.00

10.70

7.90

RUSSIA

36

33

3

8.33

7.60

3.40

SAN MARINO

4

4

0

0

16.70

-

SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO

14

13

1

7.14

7.15

-

SLOVAKIA

10

8

2

20.00

19.30

-

SLOVENIA

6

6

0

0

12.20

-

Parliamentary Assembly

National Parliaments

COUNTRY

Total

statutory

number of Members

(in brackets

effective

figure)

Delegation

Percentage

of Women

in the

Parliamentary

Assembly

Percentage

of women

in the national single

Chamber

Parliament or in the Lower Chamber

Percentage

of women

in the

national

Second

Chamber

or

Senate

Men

Women

SPAIN

24

17

7

34.30

28.30

24.30

SWEDEN

12

7

5

41.66

45.30

-

SWITZERLAND

12

8

4

33.33

23.00

19.60

"THE FORMER

YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA"

6

3

3

50.00

18.30

-

TURKEY

24 (12)

11

1

9.09

4.40

-

UKRAINE

24

24

0

0

5.30

-

UNITED KINGDOM

36

30

6

16.66

17.90

16.40

Committee responsible for the report : Committee on Rules of Procedure and Immunities

Reference to committee: Bureau of the Assembly’s decision of 31 March 2003 (Rule 65.2 of the Rules of Procedure)

Draft resolution adopted by the committee on 25 June 2003

Members of the committee : Mr Holovaty, (Chairperson), MM. Vis, Olteanu, Mrs Posada (Alternate: Barquero Vazquez), (Vice-Chairpersons), MM. Akçam, Aliyev, Mrs Auken, MM. Bernik, Budišin, Calmes, Ceder, Collavini, Mrs Doktorowicz, MM. Dule, Flajolet, Frankenhauser (Alternate: Deittert), Gedei, Gligorić, Gonzi, Himmer, Höfer, Janssen van Raaij, Jung Armand, Kaikkonen, Kroupa, Lydeka, Magnusson, (Alternate: Einarsson), Maissen, Malins (Alternate: Bruce), Mrs Mintas-Hodak, MM. Miššík, Monsen, Occhetto, Pentchev, Pereira Coelho, Mrs Pericleous-Papadopoulos, Mrs Pétursdóttir, MM. Riccardi, Salaridze, Sharandin, Stepaniuc, Taliadouros, Wright, Zernovski

N.B. The names of members who took part in the vote are printed in italics.

Secretary of the committee: Mr Heinrich.

1 Compare with Art. 2 paragraph 3 of the Rules of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe.

2 According to information of the IPU, the second chamber of the parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina has no women members.

3 Source : Interparliamentary Union [http://www.ipu.org]