Brussels, 12/09/2002 (Agence Europe) - EU enlargement to the East raises problems of a cultural, political, economic, sociological and social kind as far as equal opportunities between men and women are concerned. Such problems are difficult to resolve because of the influence of the Church in these countries but also an almost unmoveable patriarchy, and the worrying phenomenon of the "trade in women". These remarks were made on several occasions during the hearing organised on 10 September by the Committee on Women's Rights at the EP, on the theme "Is enlargement also for women?". Women experts from Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Slovenia as well as Croatia and Serbia and MEPs (some male MEPs took part) have sought to answer three essential questions: (1) How will EU legislation on equality determine the situation of women in candidate countries? (2) Social and economic situation of women in the candidate countries: what impact of accession?. (3) Women's participation in the decision-making process - the case of the EP 2004 elections.
Eleonora Zielinska (University of Warsaw, Poland) affirmed that what Polish women want is to "increase representation of women at the political level to 40% in 2003 and to 50% within the next ten years, as opposed to 30% at present". According to Lithuanian Ausrine Burneikiene (equal opportunities mediator), "women must have the possibility to have their rights respected on a daily basis, but how?" MEP Patsy Sörensen (Greens/ALE, Belgium) raised the subject of EU information policy in the candidate states. "Do you really manage to get through to women in rural areas? In what language? - seeing as everything is always in English". Greek Socialist Anna Karamanou, Chair of the Parliamentary Committee, noted the role of the Church, mainly concerning abortion. "What is the atmosphere among women with regards EU membership? Do they think they will gain from it?", she asks. "The role of the Church is very strong (…) It has a negative position on equality, sexual education and abortion", replied Ms Zielinska. Serbian national Marina Blagojevic, who teaches at the University of Hildesheim in Germany, rejected the "traditional formula that makes women the great losers from enlargement. It is over simplistic, and counter-productive". At the same time, she drew attention to the "resistance to change" in Eastern European countries and on "the sacrifice of women" who "are used in the unofficial economy". Ms Blagojevic spoke of the cultural problem and, following closely on her heels, Croatian natonal Daza Silovic (UNDP adviser in New York) said that "equality is mainly a cultural problem". She saw enlargement in terms of "human development". "How do we stand with this human capital? Are we wasting it? What will the new labour market forces for the united Europe mean?" To the question of knowing whether society already "feels" it could belong to the EU one day, Ms Silovic replied: "No. Perhaps in Ministries, but this is not the case at the level of ordinary society. People are interested in surviving!" Slovenian Sociologist Milica Antiae Gaber (University of Ljublijana) asked what would happen at the European elections in June 2004. "Seventeen seats are attributed to Slovenians, which is very little, all the more as there are a large number of male candidates for the three largest parties. There will probably not be any Slovenian women elected", she exclaimed. To this, Anna Karamanou replied that "one must not be pessimistic" but "fight". Pierre Mirel, Director for Enlargement at the European Commission, added that it is "urgent not to allow conservative forces hold the monopoly for decision making on equal opportunities". German Social Democrat Lissy Gröner said it was necessary to "make men more aware of mainstreaming" and Christa Prets (PES, Austria) said the problems of education and training, employment and income for women were almost the same in the Eastern European countries and in the EU. Koldo Gorostraga (NA, Spain, the only man to take the floor) noted that "there has always been resistance to change throughout history. Given that women have at least a level of competence equal to that of men, and probably even better, this means that resistance on the part of men will increase in future". According to the elected member of the Basque Batasuna party, the patriarchal system will be there for many years yet and this will only be abolished by educating new generations in the spirit of gender equality and by eliminating "macho expressions in the language". Olga Zrihen (PES, Belgium), for her part, highlighted the "paradoxical images" that one finds in these countries where "women are presented as being submissive", whereas, for example as European Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin recalled, there is a high proportion of women in Eastern European countries who are in the science sector, which is a real asset.
Drawing the conclusions of the hearing, Danish Liberal Lone Kybkjaer recognised that "there are still many differences between us and the Eastern European countries especially cultural differences which are greater than we thought". The last word went to Marina Blagojevic who felt the "enlargement project must be presented as a social project" to be implemented by the players concerned on the ground.