| “It’s Raining Men” is a disco anthem of the 1980s by the American musical duo The Weather Girls, celebrating female empowerment and liberation. It became a number-one dance hit in the US and other countries in cover versions by other artists, to mention only The Pointer Sisters. However, the upbeat rhythm of the worldwide hit is an irritant in the cabinet of Ursula von der Leyen. Day in, and day out, letters arrive from the capitals, and most of them announce that the respective country is proposing a male candidate for EU commissioner. Von der Leyen, the first female Commission president, set herself the goal of achieving gender parity at the top table of the EU executive. She wrote letters to the member states asking them to propose two candidates, a man and a woman. Today, she needs to admit that her request was largely ignored. Of the 27 member states, 22 have so far submitted their choice of Commissioner-designates, 16 of whom are men, while Portugal, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, and Bulgaria have yet to announce their choice. If all of the five countries comply with von der Leyen’s request and put forward two names, at best, the next Commission would have a male-female ratio of 16 to 11. This is not parity. Several countries announced their candidate for commissioner ahead of von der Leyen’s letter, which was expected to request the double candidacy. Such candidacy is seen as vexatious in many capitals because one of the proposed politicians (most probably the male candidate) is going to be rejected by default. It is understandable that governments does not want to put one of its public servants in the role of the loser. Moreover, for von der Leyen it is difficult to reject people she has worked with in the last five years, only because they are male: to name only the heavyweights Thierry Breton (France), Maroš Šefčovič (Slovakia) and Valdis Dombrovskis (Latvia). | 