CKID’s Conference on “The Participation of Women in the European Social and Political Life”

The Constantinos Karamanlis Institute for Democracy (CKID) organizes a conference in Athens on “The Participation of women in the social and political life”, on Monday, 25^th of May 2009.

The aim of this event is to discuss the problem of unequal representation of men and women in the decision making process. Ιt elaborates on the roots of this disproportion in male to female ratios, and it presents and evaluates the implemented policies at a European and national level.

The speakers include: Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou (MEP, Vice-President of the European Parliament), Olga Kefalogianni (Member of the Hellenic Parliament), Eugenia Tsoumani (Secretary General for Gender Equality, Ministry of Interior), Dr. Hara Karagiannopoulou (Visiting Lecturer of the Department of International and European Studies, Panteion University, Athens). The discussion is moderated by Dr. Nikolaos Tzifakis (Head of the CKID International Cooperation Department).

The conference is expected to raise awareness on the dimensions of the problem, provide recommendations for the improvement of the relevant policies, aiming at stimulating women’s greater participation in high level posts in the domains of politics and economy.

A report will be subsequently published.

The event is part of the project "Women in Europe: achieving parity" managed by the Robert Schuman Foundation together with the FAES, the Karamanlis Institute, the Ano Pro Evropu Association, the Association for Equal Opportunities, the Ithaka Foundation and finalised with the support of the European programme "Europe for Citizens". The project aims to involve women in political life both on a national and European level and to propose real measures to be established by the Member States and the European institutions to achieve parity in terms of women's participation in political decision-making. http://www.femmesparite.eu/en/1,home (the official site of the project).