Head of PACE: “Women are like oxygen, the higher they go, the fewer they are”

During the first session of the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe the head of the Assembly Lilian Mori Pasquier  was re-elected. Let us recall that she was elected Head of PACE in 2018 on June 25^th.

In her opening remarks, the PACE official warmly welcomed the involvement of women in the national delegations of the Assembly to be more than in national parliaments. Lilian Mori Pasequer described this as a very positive development.

“Equality is very important in the context of electoral processes, we must continue to support the achievement of equality between men and women. I often say women are like oxygen, the higher they go, the fewer they are. This is especially true of politics. As a pluralist proponent of advocacy and discrimination, the Council of Europe should continue to contribute to a full-fledged solution to the problem of gender equality, “she said in her opening remarks.

At the same time, the Head of PACE emphasized that there is still a way to reach 50/50 representation. “We have to make more efforts to achieve gender equality. We must ensure full gender equality of co-rapporteurs, commission chairmen and vice presidents as well as PACE officials. The statistics that I ask you to study show that there is progress in this regard, “she said.

According to the statistics published on the Assembly page, 34% of PACE members are women, while representation in national parliaments is an average of 25.92%.

“This is evidenced by the positive impact of the requirement of the Assembly Charter, in which delegations should include as few women as represented in national parliaments. We are on the right path, but we have a long way to go, “she emphasized.

Lilian Mori Pasequer said at the same time that compared to previous years, the representation of women in the Assembly has dropped, if they were 39% in 2016 and 37% in 2017, then in 2018 this figure dropped to 34%.

Head of the NA delegation to PACE Ruben Rubinyan, members of the delegation Vladimir Vardanyan, Naira Zohrabyan, Michael Melkumyan, Edmon Marukyan, Hovhannes Igityan, Tatevik Hayrapetyan and Sos Avetisyan have been delegated to Strasbourg to participate in the first part of the session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Of the 8 members of the delegation, two or 25 percent are women. In the newly elected National Assembly, 32 out of 132 members are women or 24% are women. So the warm welcome of the PACE President is also addressed to the Armenian delegation.