During an informal summit in Romania, European Council President Donald Tusk promised to strive for geographic, demographic, political and gender balance among candidates for top jobs in the EU. Currently, most of those positions are held by men with Federica Mogherini, the high representative for foreign affairs, an exception. While men dominate top EU posts, the proportion of women sitting in the European Parliament has more than doubled since the first directly elected MEPs took office back in 1979. Ahead of the European Elections from May 23-26, which countries have the highest share of female candidates? According to the European Parliament website, 50 percent of candidates in Italy, France and Slovenia are female. Hungary and Malta have the lowest share with just 21 and 22 percent respectively. Data was not available for Belgium, Finland, Portugal and Sweden. In the outgoing session, 76.9 percent of Finland’s MEPs were women.

 
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