A Spanish voter asks: “Will these elections make it possible to accomplish everything this legislature did not manage to get done? Above all, will the new parliament make a successful step forward where equal rights for women are concerned?”

“Pascal Delwit, political science professor at Brussels Université Libre: When this legislature ends, everything it had begun but not finished will, of course, be closed. A new legislature takes up the work again more or less from zero. Can matters of women’s rights be improved? This is not an area left exclusively up to the European Parliament to act in. Therefore it does not have a right of initiative. So, it hinges on a lot of things. First: the composition of the future Commission, the way its president leads it… This may be a resumption on the part of Jose Manuel Barroso, but perhaps someone else. Yet, evidently, it will also depend on the composition of the European Parliament itself, and also the state of opinion represented in national executives.”More about: Women’s rights

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