"The advances in increasing the number of women in decision-making posts were carried out too slowly", said EU Commissioner Spidla. And he added: "Gender equality is also a positive element on the economic level. Our work economies must fully increase the value of all the talents available to us, if we want to face global competition". Going back to the data of the women presence in management posts in the economic field, we see that, in the European Union, the 27 central banks are all presided over by men, in the same way as it happens with the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. Moreover, in the old continent, "over 44% of the total of workers are women, but just 32% of business managers general managers, directors and administrators of small businesses – are women". The fact that women are scarcely represented at the top "is an even more remarkable phenomenon in big enterprises", in which men occupy about 90% of the posts in boards of directors, "a figure it is said in the survey by the Commission – which hardly improved in the last few years". A few steps forward, on the other hand, are being made within the central administrations of member States, where today women occupy 33% of the higher management levels, against 17% in 1999.
