Europe and the CIS

The Czech coalition parties have nominated Regional Development Minister Věra Jourová as the country’s candidate for the European Commission. The Czech government hopes she could take over one of the economic portfolios in the commission. Ms Jourová, of the ANO party, meanwhile, has vowed to raise the EU’s prestige with Czechs.

We invite our users to read the full article published on July 21st 2014.

Women are taking an increasingly active role as decision-makers in Serbian politics, but some bloggers say more steps should be taken to ensure greater participation at the highest levels of government.

While there were virtually no women in politics in Serbia in the recent past, the situation changed since the democratic changes in 2000 that culminated with the passage in 2011 of the country's election law, which stipulates women must constitute 30 percent of Serbia's parliament.

At present, women constitute 33 percent of MPs.

With the role of women in British politics again coming under the spotlight this week, MPs and former ministers have warned that there is a “real problem” with the issue of gender in Westminster.

David Cameron is expected to reveal a major Cabinet reshuffle tomorrow with younger women promoted to senior roles in place of aging men, but Labour says it is an effort that comes so late as to seem like a “last-minute worry about votes”.

Outgoing female Commissioners are “extremely concerned” for the possibility of women being under-represented in the next European Commission. This is why they wrote Juncker a letter for calling him to be committed into guaranteeing gender balance.

To read the full article published on July 10th 2014, please click here.

President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite attended the opening ceremony of the Transparency International summer school against corruption and discussed with the youth about the reasons behind corruption and measures contributing to seek for greater transparency, informs LETA/ELTA.

We invite our users to read the full article published on July 8th 2014.

On May 27, the National Democratic Institute hosted the 2014 HOPE Fellows for a presentation titled, “When Legislation is Not Enough: Addressing Gaps in Implementation of Kosovo’s Laws on Gender Equality.” Speaking directly to the topic of realizing gender equality in Kosovo, the Fellows shed light on four main issue areas: 1) implementing written law: 2) strengthening the rule of law; 3) combating social norms; and 4) producing realistic action plans.