Jillian van Turnhout (Independent)

The Minister referred to the local elections, on which I will comment during the debate on our next amendment. He has made some valid points which underline the next amendment which we tabled. In spite of the number of female Deputies rising slightly since 1997, the overall percentage of women standing in general elections is decreasing. We must be more ambitious. Previously we debated ways by which we could reduce the time period involved because it could take several elections to get to the figure of 40%. Our group has the greatest difficulty with the fact that potentially it will take a considerable length of time for us to increase the level of representation from 30% to 40%, a point the Minister did not address.