Madrid (EFE)
One of the key points of the future law is to establish a quota of women for government bodies such as the Council of Ministers and other decision-making spaces such as the management of large companies, which must guarantee 40% of women among its components.
Specifically, all listed companies or public interest entities with more than 250 workers and 50 million annual turnover will be required to comply with this percentage, as well as the governing boards of professional associations and juries that award prizes financed with public money.
In addition, the norm will establish the obligatory nature of the zipper electoral lists, that is, that they integrate men and women with a total alternation.
An “electoralist” proposal
Sánchez’s proposal, launched over the weekend during a PSOE event to celebrate 8M, has aroused criticism on the right, which labels it electoralist.
The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has urged Sánchez “not to impose parity on others but on himself” and has criticized that the Executive has presented as a “great novelty” a law that only complies with the obligation to transposing a European directive that was proposed by the European People’s Party.
Likewise, the spokesperson for the popular in Congress, Cuca Gamarra, has indicated that a law like this must be agreed upon in Parliament and with the social agents, since it affects the business sphere.
From Vox, the party’s deputy spokesperson in Congress, Inés Cañizares, has called the rule “sectarian propaganda” and has rejected it because, in her words, the Government cannot give “many lessons for the good treatment of women”. .
For her part, the national spokesperson for Ciudadanos, Patricia Guasp, has defended meritocracy as a way to reach decision-making positions and has considered that equal opportunities between men and women is not achieved with quotas but with effective and efficient policies.
On the contrary, the socialist ministers celebrate the initiative, which, in the words of the head of Territorial Policy and spokesperson for the Government of Spain, Isabel Rodríguez, will be seen by the international context as a “leading” law.
Support in the government coalition
The First Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño, also believes that “female talent must be fully exploited, for reasons of social policy and economic efficiency”, while the President of Congress, Meritxell Batet, has stressed that the rule will consolidate to Spain as “a true beacon in terms of equality between men and women”.
There have also been good words from Podemos, whose spokesperson in the Madrid Assembly, Alejandra Jacinto, has indicated that “all the measures that are aimed at advancing equality are good news.”