PM defends gender composition of cabinet

In an interview with the BBC’s Hardtalk program aired on Thursday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis declared that he wanted to see more women in politics and that the small proportion of women in his cabinet – only two out of 22 male ministers – was because Greek women were “hesitant” to join the government.

“Unfortunately we don’t have that many women who were interested in stepping into politics,” Mitsotakis said, adding that he had sought to bring more in. “We put a quota for women – 40 percent of our candidates were women, which is a big step forward,” he told Hardtalk’s Zeinab Badawi, noting however that the composition of Parliament does not reflect this.

“I asked a lot of women to join the cabinet, they were much more hesitant than men to do so,” he said. “So I’m not happy about our gender composition, I openly acknowledge it.”

As for the women who are in his cabinet, he described them as “extremely capable” and said he was sure they would do a “fantastic job” and help other women join the government.