On Thursday 13 November, European Parliament initiated the procedure to amend European Union electoral law to allow a pregnant MEP to entrust her vote to another MEP for a maximum period of three months before the expected date of birth and for a maximum period of six months after the birth (see EUROPE 13746/24).
The legislative proposal is forwarded to the EU Council for unanimous approval by the Member States. If amended, it will have to be approved by more than half the MEPs. All Member States will then have to approve it in accordance with their respective constitutional procedures.
“As a politician and a woman, I can only hope that the Member States will agree with us that the modernisation of our voting rules is long overdue”, said European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, pointing to her own experience which had previously prevented her from voting to elect Parliament’s president. In her view, this measure will encourage women to stand as candidates in the European elections, despite the fact that only “37%” of the European Parliament hemicycle is currently made up of women. “It’s not enough”, said Ms Metsola.
Asked why this measure to strengthen women’s rights didn’t include other forms of parenthood, European Parliament rapporteur Juan Fernando López Aguilar (S&D, Spanish) stressed the difficulty of amending EU electoral law, but did not rule out the possibility of eventually “broadening” the scope of the targeted measure adopted.
See the legislative text: https://aeur.eu/f/jeo (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)