Overshadowed by men playing political drama queens – candidate Călin Georgescu's TikTok campaign in Romania's presidential elections, the collapse of French Prime Minister Michel Barnier's government, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s call for a no-confidence vote – the 14 days of the European Parliament's Gender Equality Week (2-15 December) will end as inconspicuously as they began.
“Gender balance in decision-making has the greatest room for improvement despite making the most progress in gender equality in recent years. Achievements in other domains and their overall impact on gender equality are much lower,” says the Gender Equality Index 2024 report, published on Tuesday (10 December).
The report puts these improvements into perspective by ranking the 27 EU member states across six categories – work, money, knowledge, time, power, and health – for the period between 2010 and 2022.
So, essentially, it reveals the real ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in gender equality.
Predictably, Sweden (with a score of 82 out of 100 points), Denmark, and the Netherlands (78.8 points) lead the index, making them out to be role models in all areas of equality. In contrast, Romania (57.5), Hungary (57.8) and Greece (59.3) seem to be stuck with rather opposite approaches to gender equality.
“We can do more, and we must do more on a European level. We are making progress, but it is not fast enough," said European Parliament President Roberta Metsola in a video statement where she presents her thoughts on the Parliament’s commitment to gender equality.
Metsola’s call must have sounded like a fever dream to Hungary and Romania.
