Equal Opportunities for Women and Men [antikvár]

Bringing the EU Home "Bringing the EU Home" is a three-year project (2004-2006) conceptualized as a follow up to the Program on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men in the European Accession Process (EOWM), which was a joint initiative of the Open Society Foundation Romania and the Network Women's Program of the Open Society Institute*. The EOWM projects stemmed from the Open Society Institute project to monitor the progress of candidate countries as they prepared themselves for integration into the European Union and ensured that they met the Copenhagen political criteria, particularly in relation to the independence of the judiciary, minorities' rights, and anti-corruption. Given the acquis communautaire in the field of equal opportunities for women and men, which accession countries are required to adopt and comply with, an independent programme, EUMAP, to evaluate the status of accession countries from this perspective was developed. An assessment of the status of equal opportunities, de jure and de facto, was carried out in seven of the ten candidate countries: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Romania. The EU Directives on equal opportunities provided the framework for monitoring and analyzing corresponding legislation, institutions and practices. The Directives related to the principle of equal pay for work of equal value; equal treatment as regards employment; protection of pregnant, and breastfeeding women, and women who recently gave birth; the burden of proof in cases of sex-based discrimination, and non-discrimination against part-time workers were analyzed in 2001. The remaining Directives on self-employed workers, parental leave, and social security schemes were assessed in 2002. The final report, including an overview and executive summary for each country, was published in November 2002. Each country report and executive summary was translated into the national language and used as an advocacy/research tool. 2002 and 2003 were years of intensive outreach efforts, both nationally and at the EU level. Countries organized roundtables and meetings for NGOs, government officials, lawyers, and média to publicize the findings of the reports. The English version was used for advocacy at the EU level, and sent to members of Parliament from EU and candidate countries. Country information was presented twice at meetings in Brussels, and the final reports were launched at the European Parliament in November 2002. Monitoring the EU Accession Process: Equal Opportunities for Women and Men 2002,