Gender Equality Cannot Be Achieved without Government Pressure

The President of the Republic Zoran Milanović participated in the event entitled “Ring the Bell for Gender Equality” organized by the Zagreb Stock Exchange and the Croatian Employers’ Association as part of a global initiative in which stock exchanges worldwide mark the opening of a trade by symbolically ringing the bell to celebrate International Women’s Day. The President said that gender equality could not be achieved without the public sector and the government exerting pressure and that such positive discrimination is necessary.

“It has nothing to do with agreeing, it has to be done by pressure. Nothing will be achieved without quotas. Without such positive discrimination, under the patronage of the State, there is no progress. It is not done nicely, it is not done by persuasion. As we have done, and this has later become law, and not only included in party statutes, certain factors in society just have to be forced to behave in such a manner. Without government pressure in gender equality issues nothing can be achieved”, President Milanović noted. He feels that the present system is not bad, but without the State and the public sector “there would be no women anywhere”. “Nothing can be done without the public sector and without State pressure and power and those who lead it.” Otherwise, each discussion will end with what we have heard here several times, which I do not support, is the story about profit and benefits for the shareholders”, President Milanović noted. He cautioned that large corporations act selfishly, greedily, in order to “to put money in their pockets, as he said, and rebuy shares, then talk about women’s rights. “This does not go hand in hand”, MIlanović said, reminding that that this is not the case of the Zagreb Stock Exchange and Croatian companies “because they are small”.