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Assembly of European Regions

Connecting regions, inspiring Europe since 1985

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Engendering Equality across Europe’s Regions: addressing the Underrepresentation of Women in Politics

8 March, 2022 By Editor

On International Women’s Day 2022, Bianca Silva shares a wrap-up of an in-depth debate on how to bring about a gender equal Europe, starting in our regions.

As part of the 2021 European Week of Regions & Cities, the Assembly of European Regions (AER) organised a debate on achieving gender equality in politics, bringing together politicians and civil society to share ideas on how regions can help bring about a truly equal Europe. 

The debate included high-level speakers from the European and regional level. With a video address from Helena Dalli, European Commissioner for Equality and the participation of: Cllr Andrew Gibson, AER Vice President for Inclusion, Diversity & Equal Opportunities; Christian Spahr, AER Secretary General; Cllr Alison Gilliland, Lord Mayor of Dublin; Robert Biedroń, Member of the European Parliament and Vice-Chair of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality.

The moderation was carried by Dr Angela-Unufe Kennedy, CEO of the Migrant & Minority Disability Network Europe.

Union of Equality? 

Commissioner for Equality @helenadalli explains that the share of women in regional assemblies in the
EU is just 32%.🇪🇺
For a #UnionOfEquality, we need "equal access to time, money & political networks, equal care responsibilities & to break male-dominated political cultures." pic.twitter.com/JoOjuh9I3b

— AER (@europeanregions) October 14, 2021

“The underrepresentation of women in positions of power is a democratic deficit”, asserted the European Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli, in her keynote address. A truly democratic Europe demands an accurate representation of our communities, yet, “the share of women in regional assemblies in the European Union is 32%”. 

Following the address, AER Secretary General Christian Spahr presented the results of an opinion poll AER conducted in six countries representing more than 60% of the EU population: Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Sweden and Romania. Responses to several questions related to issues of gender equality were presented to kick-off the discussion.

So how do women feel the situation is in European regions? Taken as a whole, women believe the situation in their region is slightly worse in terms of equal opportunities to participate in society and politics than men do. 22% of men think the situation is “Very bad” or “Quite bad”, against 26% for women, while a higher percentage of men (35%) think the situation is “Very Good” or “Good” compared to 24% for women.

When it comes to the individual countries, Mr Spahr shared that the most optimistic country is Sweden followed by Poland, while the less optimistic are Italy and Romania. 35% of Swedes believe the situation is “Quite good” or “Very good”, followed by Poland and Germany at 33%.  

Less optimistic are Italy and Romania. Just 8% of Italians think the situation is “Very good” or “Quite good” compared with 11% of Romanians. 32% of Italians think the situation for women is “Very bad” or “Quite bad”. For Romanians, the percentage is 27%.

What are the barriers to women’s participation and progression in politics?

Next up, our panel discussed what they viewed as the key constraints preventing women taking an active role in politics. What were the main problem areas they picked out?

The Gender pay gap 

The gender pay gap contributes to an unequal access to cash, which is exacerbated in the lower paid workforce. “Low paid jobs are overwhelmingly held by women” stated Cllr Andrew Gibson, who believes there is an “unconscious discrimination” and “belief system” which leads to a “male dominated society”. 

This makes it harder for women to get a start in politics or run for office. “You need cash to run a political campaign, and our experience shows that when you are starting out you have to fund it from your own capital”, shared the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Alison Gilliand.  

How can we break down the "5 Cs" that prevent women from taking an active role in politics? 🤔

"If you can't see it, you can't be it" on way is to increase women's visibility as local Councillors to get #morewomen into politics, says @LordMayorDublin @AlisonGilliland. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/rBLt472QMJ

— AER (@europeanregions) October 14, 2021

Childcare and elder care 

Furthermore, traditionally and culturally, women have taken the roles of caregivers at home, taking responsibility for childcare and eldercare. These imbalances converge into constraints that foreclose women’s participation and progression in politics.

The Lord Mayor explained that current child and elderly care culture “doesn’t serve women” and further supports male dominance of politics by keeping women in the private arena of their homes. This was also picked up by our next speaker, Robert Biedroń, Vice-Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, who underlined that access to childcare “is one of the main barriers [women face] to enter politics”.

Having more women politicians would in turn improve child care and elder care policies, in accordance with the Lord Mayor. Mr Biedroń added that there should be improvements to the EU laws in regards to maternity and paternity leave. 

Confidence and male-dominated political culture 

Another key barrier is political culture and the lack of women role models. “If you can’t see it you can’t be it” as the Lord Mayor put it. Confidence also plays a major key role, and can be improved by increasing the representation of women in politics. At the outset of her political career faced these challenges, noting that she “couldn’t identify with the usual politician” or replicate their “dominant aggressive approach”.  

Hate speech and cyberbullying 

Recently, confidence has been replaced with reluctance with the increase of hate speech and bullying online, motivated by ideological and party driven polarisation. This phenomenon has affected women in politics, as Mr Biedroń disclosed, nearly half of women politicians (45%) receive serious threats on their personhood.

“We need legislation and legal tools to define gender based crime and cyberbullying”, urged Mr Biedroń. This is absolutely crucial. Left unchecked, hate speech online can lead to real hate crimes and violence against women politicians.

Nevertheless, the panellists expressed confidence and hope in the local and regional politics, who can either be, quoting the Lord Mayor, “gatekeepers or gate openers” for women. 

How can we make a difference at a regional and local level? 

So what can be done to create a real Union of Equality? From the political to the economic and social dimensions, our panel shared several practical examples from their regions that can serve as a blueprint for change across Europe.

Representation and candidate selection 

In the opinion of the Lord Mayor, tools such as quotas, better eldercare and maternity leave and gender awareness training for political party officials are enablers of women participation in politics: “political parties need to encourage women to join and ask women supportive of them to join, to take leadership roles”.

What is @LordMayorDublin, Cllr @AlisonGilliland's advice to women on the fence about entering politics? 🤔

"Talk to your local female role models, feel the fear and do it anyway."🙌

Meet some of the local councillors in @DubCityCouncil leading the change on the ground.👇 pic.twitter.com/0F8njingJi

— AER (@europeanregions) October 14, 2021

AER Vice President Gibson suggested the candidate selection processes must be looked at, noting that in England “regional groups dictate the candidates” and therefore for a more diverse selection process there must be a “positive encouragement for women to participate in local politics”. 

Allies for equality 

Women cannot go it alone. Men need to take an active role in breaking male-dominated political cultures. especially when it comes to bringing women into positions of power locally where they are not being represented. Mr Biedroń shared his positive experience with introducing quotas during his mandate as Mayor of Słupsk, Poland from 2014 to 2018, which led to the election of the first female deputy mayor of the city in over 800 years. He stated: “we need regulations, women need an elevator”.

Women’s underrepresentation in politics is a consequence of the gender stereotypes and gender roles reproduced by our societies. This is compounded by the gender wage gap and disproportioned caregiving responsibilities at home (among other issues).

Local and regional politicians must tackle these imbalances by adopting policies that give women the same tools and opportunities as men to launch and/or maintain a political career; whether it be a long-term approach (gender equality awareness campaigns and educational programmes, universal access to child and elder care, improvement of maternity and paternity leave, equal pay regulation), a short-term approach (quotas) or a mix of both. 

Unless there are safe and balanced conditions for women to enter politics at a local and regional level, we won’t see women thrive as politicians nationally or at the European level. We need to think globally but act locally. 

Clearly, there is a lot to do, but as we learned from our panel, there are plenty of good practices that we can take from regions across Europe. As our panels’ moderator Dr Angela-Unufe Kennedy put it in her wrap-up: “If we want to unlock the potential, passion and drive of our women, we can, should and must do better.”

***

Ms Bianca Silva is a former Communications & Events intern at the Assembly of European Regions.

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Partnership in focus n.17: EDUPRENEURSHIP – Fostering Entrepreneurship in Education and Training

7 December, 2021 By Mirthe Vogd

The global pandemic has left many freelancers and entrepreneurs without income for months, which imposes an incoming challenge to stimulating entrepreneurship. If we want Europe to continue to nurture talent, create great startups, and compete on a global scale, we need to teach entrepreneurship. This will require joint efforts from the public and private sectors, as well as regional, national governments and European Institutions. This webinar gave us a glimpse of different actions needed at different levels to foster an inclusive entrepreneurial mindset and discussed local challenges for their implementation and replicability. 

The AER launched this dedicated webinar within the 2021 edition of the Skillman International Forum which took place from 15-18 November 2021. The forum aimed to redefine the future of learning, and this year it addressed three main topics: Digital and green revolution, Micro-credentials and Sharing is caring. The event was part of our series of webinars on EU funding opportunities organised as part of the Erasmus+ project, Skillnet. These webinars bring together experts in different fields linked to vocational education and training (VET) and aim to build partnerships for future EU project proposals.

Teaching Entrepreneurship in all fields of study

Teaching Entrepreneurship is necessary not only if Europe is going to continue to nurture talents, create innovative startups companies and compete on a global scale, but also because many skills involved in entrepreneurship translate well to other aspects of life and give students real-world skills. In this webinar, we have had a glimpse of different actions needed at different levels to foster an inclusive entrepreneurial mindset and discussed local challenges for their implementation and replicability.

The webinar counted upon an international panel of experts in the field, from academia to regional and civil society representatives.

Kristina Detelj, from the Zagreb University, Faculty of Organisation and Informatics Varazdin, opened the discussion providing insights on the project “WeRin: Women Entrepreneurs in Regional Inclusive Entrepreneurial Ecosystems” and specifically stressed the importance of the participation and involvement of women in the area of entrepreneurship and enhancing their level of embeddedness in regional entrepreneurial ecosystems across Europe. The example of their influence in Croatia was shared and the speaker commented on the difficulties that most women face, especially in Croatia, to access the ability to create a startup due to the high bureaucracy level. This goes hand in hand with the importance of the introduction of entrepreneurship in the curriculum in primary and secondary schools and not only on university level.

Following her, we had another academic, namely Richard Tunstall, Associate Professor of Enterprise, Entrepreneurship Education, Leeds University Business School, who informed us about the work on teaching enterprise programmes across different sectors at the Unversity of Leeds, thus being able to implement and mainstream the Entrepreneurship courses in faculties of arts, biology, design, etc. Knowledge, skills and attitudes were presented as three key targets within entrepreneurship education, as developing students’ skills and mindsets and attitudes towards problems are just as important as their knowledge about their information knowledge. 

Next, Annabelle Favreau, who is an EU Project manager at Gestión Pública de Extremadura (GPEX) in Directorate-General Enterprise of the Extremadura Region, introduced the audience to the project of “The Entrecomp Framework in Extremadura.” She shared the experiences from regional entrepreneurship programmes in Extremadura. Within the framework of the learning competences of entrepreneurship, Annabelle stressed the importance of compromising with global challenges that are apparent as an external factor. EntreComp intends to break down the barriers between work, education and civic engagement by focusing on the development of competences through the actual creation of entrepreneurial value. In this light, the EntreComp is transversal to formal, non-formal and informal learning contexts and applies equally to education and training systems, from primary to vocational education and training, and to non-structured learning contexts.

Lastly, Minna Melleri, Director of Advocacy & Growth, JA Europe, elucidated on the benefits of recognition of skills and micro-credentials and presented the Entrepreneurial Skills Pass, an international certification qualifying young people that have had real entrepreneurship experience and thus have the right competences. She added that Iceland, all EU member states, but also other states outside of the EU share a lot of history and experience, and empower young people. Developing a broad set of skills for the young people is a key element in the work she proposes. Furthermore, Minna gives the example of JA Europe as having Entrepreneurship programmes on all levels of education. She mentioned that young people within the age range of 15-21 are eligible to take part in their one year programme.

The discussion was moderated by Manos Andreadis, Responsible for the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs Programme as National Contact Point in Greece, and Director at Asset Technology responsible for Business Development, International Cooperation and Entrepreneurship.


Current and future EU funding opportunities and initiatives

  • NEW CulturEU funding guide: an interactive online tool for EU Funding Opportunities for the Cultural and Creative Sectors
  • [Forthcoming] Apply for the Horizon Europe open call for grants ‘Expanding Entrepreneurial Ecosystems’ by 10 May 2022
  • [Forthcoming] Apply for the Horizon Europe open call for grants ‘Integration of social innovation actors in innovation ecosystems’ 26 April 2022
  • Apply for the Erasmus+ open call for grants ‘Capacity Building in the field of Vocational Education and Training (VET)’ by 31 March 2022
  • [Forthcoming] Apply for the Horizon Europe open call for grants ‘Conditions for the successful development of skills matched to needs’ by 20 April 2022
  • [Forthcoming] Apply for the Horizon Europe open call for grants ‘Open schooling for science education and a learning continuum for all’ by 20 april 2022
  • Apply for the Erasmus+ open call for grants ‘Civil Society Cooperation: Education and Training’ by 15 December 2021
  • Apply for the Erasmus+ open call for grants ‘Civil Society Cooperation in the field of Youth’ by 15 December 2021
  • Apply for the Erasmus+ open call for grants ‘Capacity building in the field of youth’ by 7 April 2022
  • Apply for the Erasmus+ open call for grants ‘European Youth Together’ by 22 March 2022

Skillman.eu is a worldwide community of practitioners, researchers, and institutions engaged in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). It’s a network that aims at creating work-based learning solutions to respond to the challenges of skills shortages in industry with a participatory model and a peer learning approach. The network develops tools consistent with industry needs and relevant to the latest education challenges introduced also by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

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Interested to join a new project from Umbria to support the integration of migrants?

29 January, 2021 By Stanislava Milankov

Are you interested in joining projects within the Transnational Actions on Asylum, Migration and Integration Call? TAMAT, a non-governmental organization located in AER’s member region Umbria, is looking for partners to join their new project to support integration and social inclusion of migrants.

About the Transnational Actions on Asylum, Migration and Integration Call – Topic 1 Developing and Implementing Local Integration Strategies through Multi-stakeholder Partnerships 

Even though integration mostly occurs at the local level, local plans and strategies have to coordinate interventions of different stakeholders. Thus the AMIF-2020-AG-CALL-01 aims to support the development and implementation of multi-stakeholder local integration strategies including various aspects of the integration process. The integration and social inclusion of migrants are crucial not only for ensuring the cohesion of EU societies but also for addressing skills gaps, labour shortages, and overall economic performance.

The maximum grant for a project is 1.5 million euros having the grant up to 90% of the eligible costs. The deadline for submitting the project proposal is the 16th of February 2021, 17:00:00 Brussels time.

About the TAMAT’S project proposal 

The project proposal developed by TAMAT “Local integration supporting scheme, through multi-stakeholder partnerships, for the social and job integration of regular migrants in resilient, sustainable and prosperous living places in urban, periurban and internal areas” will address Topic 1 of the AMIF Call.

The project proposal tackles regular migrants, particularly women and youth, and strives to integrate them in the social life and job market in urban, suburban and internal areas.  Local integration supporting schemes will help migrants to:

1. join third sector social services and job public services

2. acquire a personal coach or advise

3. participate in mentoring activities

4. access working spaces and/or related services

5. access the finance (micro-credits)

6. access the networks

The project will also support the networking of organizations working in the field of regular migrants integration through facilitating mutual learning, the exchange of good practices, and the emergence of strategic collaborations among public administration, business support organization, no-profit-organizations and the third sector. 

Expected duration of the project is 36 months.

In order to ensure transnational cooperation between relevant stakeholders in the development and implementation of local integration strategies, TAMAT as a coordinator of the project is seeking partners from France, Germany and Belgium. 

If you are interested in joining this project proposal and contributing to its further development, don’t hesitate to contact us by 5 February 2021.

Contact: Agnese Pantaloni, European Projects Coordinator E-mail: [email protected]

Contact: Simone Foresi, Project Manager E-mail: [email protected]

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

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