XX Factor 1 - Women, power and the EU election

Welcome to the first episode of our new mini-series on women, power and the EU election — a fortnightly spin-off podcast from POLITICO's EU Confidential. Our timing for episode one could hardly be better. EU leaders like Manfred Weber, Frans Timmermans and Margrethe Vestager are clamoring to demand gender parity in EU institutions. In this episode, POLITICO's Lili Bayer speaks with Belgian MEP Maria Arena about the current status of women in politics. At the rate we're going, it would take 107 years to overcome the gap in women’s political representation worldwide. And the situation in Europe isn't much better. We also hear a debate between some of Europe's youngest aspiring female election candidates, including Svenja Hahn, liberal MEP candidate from Germany, Tuulia Pitkänen, socialist MEP candidate from Finland, and Ana Lidia Pereira, who was selected as an MEP candidate this week for her center-right party in Portugal. Look out for our next next episode in a couple of weeks, when we'll feature women who are shaking up Irish politics.