Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine
Hugues Mingarelli spoke today at the Verkhovna Rada and Council of Europe
conference on the equal participation of women in the EU Eastern Partnership
countries.
The conference was supported by the EU Programmatic Cooperation
Framework with the Council of Europe. The participants included the chairperson
of the subcommittee on gender equality of Verkhovna Rada, Vice-Minister of
Social Policy of Ukraine, Parliament Members from other Eastern Partnership
countries.
Ambassador Mingarelli underlined that open and
democratic society cannot exist without gender equality, it is therefore in the
heart of the EU relations with Eastern Partnership countries. The EU is willing
to share its experience in addressing common challenge of underrepresentation
of women in political and economic life.
Ambassador Mingarelli condemned the violence against
women, the most pronounced expression of the uneven balance of power
between women and men. He referred to the Istanbul Convention on
violence against women that represents a very valuable legal and policy
framework to effectively combat violence against women at national level.
Head of the EU Delegation welcomed the efforts that
have been made by the Ukrainian government to increase the role of women in
politics such as the gender quota introduced before the local elections and the
reform of financing of political parties that after the next elections will
award those parties with additional funding that have more balanced
representation of women and men among their elected Members of Parliament.
Mingarelli encouraged Ukraine to enforce those important measures in order to
address the challenge of low level of representation of women in political
life.
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