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Brussels (dpa) - Women account for almost half the number of senior European Union officials recruited from the bloc's new member states, the European Commission said Wednesday.
But the EU executive said the overall rate of job appointments for women in the commission's higher-paid top management jobs remained low.
Women accounted for 40 per cent of jobs taken up by nationals from the ten new EU countries which joined the bloc in May 2004, a survey by the commission showed.
In contrast, women from the "old" EU states represented only 27 per cent of last year's appointments to the institution's senior management posts, it said.
The overall rate of female candidates for senior jobs, however, remained very low at 15.3 per cent of all applications in 2005.
The EU executive employs 22,500 people altogether. Women account for 48.4 per cent of the commission's staff with almost 80 per cent of them working in the lowest-paid positions.
Only 3 out of 11 director generals - the commission's top administrative post - are women.
Since targets for recruiting women were not achieved in 2005, internal rules to promote the hiring of female candidates will be strengthened, the commission said.
Measures will include compulsory equal opportunities training for commission managers as well as the appointment of a permanent gender equality rapporteur.
Earlier, the commission said main obstacles hampering equal opportunities in its staff policy includes "the slow change in mentalities."
Copyright 2006 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
