Gender Quotas in Politics: The Greek System in the Light of EU Law

• Date: 01 January 2010
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0386.2009.00495.x
• Published date: 01 January 2010

eulj_49529..46

Gender Quotas in Politics: The Greek

System in the Light of EU Law

Panos Kapotas*

Abstract: Positive action is currently gaining momentum in the European anti-

discrimination discourse and policy-making as a necessary and effective tool to achieve the

goal of full and effective equality in employment. Gender quotas in politics, however, are

thought to remain outside the normative scope of Community law, the dominant view

being that candidature for elected public off‌ice does not constitute employment in the sense

of the relevant provisions. This article seeks to examine the Greek quota system for women

in politics in its dialectical relationship to the general equality discourse and with reference

to the current normative framework in Europe. The aims are threefold: to assess the

legality of positive action in favour of women in politics from the point of view of EU law,

to evaluate the effectiveness of the Greek system in achieving its gender equality goals, and

to identify the problems that quotas in politics may pose with regard to the principle of

democratic representation. It will, thus, be argued that positive measures in politics,

though generally compatible with the fundamental principles of justice and representative

democracy, may nevertheless be inadequate—at least in their current form—to provide

effective solutions to the unequal distribution of social and political power.

I Introduction

In the framework of international political and economic developments during the

1980s and 1990s, Greece attempted to reshape its social infrastructures and implement

an economic and social policy able to confront the contemporary problems of its

citizens. In this context, gender equality became the top priority in the legal agenda and

a core concern for the legislator. Positive measures, hotly disputed when f‌irst intro-

duced almost two decades ago, have gradually but steadily gained support in academia

and in policy-making circles, so that that they are now generally regarded as a legiti-

mate means in principle to achieve full gender equality in employment.

When it comes to elected public off‌ice, however, the issue seems to be doctrinally

unclear and politically controversial. Although a number of European countries,

including Greece, have implemented some form of positive action in favour of women

in politics, the dominant position in the literature appears to be that candidature for

* LSE Fellow and PhD candidate, London School of Economics and Political Science. The author wishes

to thank Hugh Collins and James Penner for their invaluable help and insightful comments on earlier

drafts of this article. Any mistakes or omissions remain the author’s alone.

European Law Journal, Vol. 16, No. 1, January 2010, pp. 29–46.

© 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK

and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

political off‌ice does not constitute ‘employment’ in the sense of EU law. The matter,

therefore, remains outside the normative scope of EU law and is left to the regulatory

discretion of the Member States. The tension in this view is obvious: achieving full

gender equality forms part of the main objectives of the EU; yet, if the laws of the latter

are seen as imposing no positive obligation to that effect in the one area of the public

sphere where individual actors are vested with the authority to exercise state power

at the highest level, then how can the goal of full gender equality ever be truly

accomplished?

This article seeks to examine the Greek quota system for women in politics in its

dialectical relationship to the general equality discourse and with reference to the

current normative framework in Europe. The aims are threefold: (1) to assess the

legality of positive action in favour of women in politics from the point of view of EU

law; (2) to evaluate the effectiveness of the Greek system in achieving its gender equality

goals; and (3) to identify the problems that quotas in politics may pose with regard to

the principle of democratic representation.

After a brief historical overview of gender equality in Greece, section II of the article

will provide an account of the relevant Greek legislation in force. Section III of the

article will then move on to examine the specif‌ic form of positive action in the light of

EU law. The overarching analytical purpose is to determine whether quotas in favour

of female candidates for elected public off‌ice may fall within the remit of the state

obligation under EU law to promote full gender equality. In this respect, a particularly

important question is whether the different normative attitude towards quotas in

elected public off‌ice (thought to be outside the normative scope of EU law) and quotas

in non-elected decision-making positions in public bodies (thought to fall within the

regulatory scope of EU law) can be justif‌ied.

Section IV of the article will focus on the theoretical justif‌ication of quotas as a

mechanism to achieve gender equality in elected public off‌ice. As with quotas in

employment, the principal arguments involve both the legitimacy and the eff‌iciency of

quotas as a mechanism to tackle under-representation of women as a social group. The

question, then, is whether representation should be def‌ined in terms of group member-

ship or in terms of actual opinions that ref‌lect the interests of the under-represented

group.1Opting for the latter necessarily entails that disadvantage per se is given

conceptual priority over under-representation as a criterion for entitlement to positive

measures. This means, for instance, that the lower percentage of male nurses compared

to female nurses will not in itself be enough to render men a disadvantaged group for

the purposes of positive action. In this sense it is conceivable that a social group is

under-represented in a particular area of the public sphere without it also being disad-

vantaged in a normatively signif‌icant way. It will, thus, be argued that positive mea-

sures in politics, though generally compatible with the fundamental principles of justice

and representative democracy, may nevertheless be inadequate—at least in their

current form—to provide effective solutions to the unequal distribution of social and

political power.

1Or the group’s collective perception of these interests.

European Law Journal Volume 16

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