More women in leadership positions and more female elected officials, that's what the FDP wants. But they want to avoid a rigid quota. That is why the FDP now introduces so-called target agreements. "Where there are already many women, the target agreement can be particularly ambitious.Otherwise, once women have been recruited as members," said the designated Secretary-General Linda Teuteberg in an interview with the editorial network Germany.
The target agreements were decided on Thursday by the party executive. They apply to the federal, provincial, district, district and local association level in the FDP. Teuteberg is to be elected at the beginning of the new party congress to the new General Secretary and thus follow Nicola Beer, which leads the FDP as a leading candidate in the European elections in late May. Party leader Christian Lindner is back in Berlin for election, as well as the entire leadership.
Women's share in the FDP has long been very low
The small proportion of women in the FDP - currently only 21.6 percent of 64,350 members - employs the party for some time. For more than a year, a separate working group discussed possible ways out of misery. The question of whether a quota should be introduced, was in the discussion, but was ultimately rejected. Many women were against it, internally even in the case of the introduction of a quota a "wave of departure" of female members was feared. This was recently declared by the acting secretary-general Nicola Beer, who led the working group. The quota would not do justice to the women in the FDP and she would be rejected even more vigorously by younger women in the party, she said.
Now, "target agreements" should provide a remedy and bring more FDP women in leadership positions and in the parliaments. The model has the advantage of being able to respond flexibly and individually to the local situation, said the designated Secretary-General Teuteberg. She herself deals with the quota question apparently more relaxed than some other women in the FDP: She is not afraid to be considered a quota woman, she said on a similar question in an interview with the "Berliner Zeitung".
The Bavarian FDP had recently decided on a state party convention to implement a "target agreement": So the candidate lists in the first two places for the election of the Bundestag and state parliament are to be filled equally with a man and a woman. In addition, the Bavarian FDP had agreed that the proportion of women in the offices of the party should rise to one-third.