Did newcomers make a difference? Making equality in the EU-27

1st European Conference on Politics and Gender January, 20-23, 2009, Queen University, Belfast Did newcomers make a difference? Making equality in the EU-27 MAXIME FOREST1 Groupe de sociologie politique européenne (GSPE), Strasbourg / Universidad Complutense de Madrid Abstract: In 2004, nominating Slovak Anna Zaborská as the chairwoman of the Women’s rights and Gender equality committee (FEMM) resulted highly controversial. Long term public engagement against reproductive rights in Slovakia as a member of the Christian-democratic Union aroused suspicion on equality policy-making at the EP. On a first place, the paper addresses the political background of female MEPs from Central & Eastern Europe at the FEMM committee, as well as their “socialization to Europe”. Based upon interviews, biographical data and comparative analysis of women’s representation in post communist Europe, it draws attention on differentiated paths to political representation. Drawing further comparisons with previous European legislatures, the paper also attempts an assessment of the impact of Eastern enlargement on the making of equality policies at the European Parliament and suggest a plausible research agenda. Although the making of gender equality policies at the EU-level has drawn a huge amount of scholarly attention on the Europeanization of gender politics in general (Shaw, 2000 ; Caporaso & Jupille, 2001 ; Mazey, 2000), there is still a void left in the literature for interpreting and theorizing the actual contribution of female Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to these processes. By Europeanization, I do not only refer to the making of Gender Equality policies and the building of Equality machineries at the EU level, but to a more complex range of institutional, political and cognitive processes. Drawing upon a sociological-institutionalist definition of Europeanization (Börzel & Risse, 2003, Radaelli, 2003, 2006), I also refer to the domestic impact of EU policies. An impact that can be assessed not only in terms of new legislative and institutional instruments for enforcing gender equality, but also in shaping new opportunity structures for domestic actors to bring this issue into the political agenda. Female MEPs elected in the old member states have been at the core of a limited number of longitudinal studies, which mostly focused on national delegations (Michon & Beauvallet, 2008a, 2009) and have usually been annexed to the study of national legislatures (Mateo-Díaz, 2005). Nonetheless, those have brought valuable insights about what differentiate women deputies from their male colleagues at the EP and from their female colleagues elected at different levels of representation (national or subnational) in terms of social background or recruitment patterns. The presence of women 1 maxime-forest @hotmail.fr. This paper is an extended and updated version of the paper presented at the 4th Pan-European Conference on EU Politics, Riga, September 22-25th, 2008. Therefore, it has benefited from comments by Prof. Gabriella Ilonzski and numerous inputs by Willy Beauvallet and Sébastien Michon, at the GSPE, University of Strasbourg. 1 has been addressed in a rather theoretical (substantive) way, through the lens of political and interests representation or legitimacy (Freedman, 2002), particularly accurate in the case of a supranational institution. Other aspects such as legislative behaviour have been merely left unquestioned, while it has been thoroughly addressed for national legislatures, in relation with a sometimes problematic definition of women’s interests (For discussion, see: Childs, 2001, 2003; Celis, 2005). Taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of the literature that has developed so far, this paper attempts to identify which might be the specific agenda of researches focusing on female MEPs elected in the new member states. Drawing upon the first steps of this new research area, as well as a knowledge of domestic political recruitment and legislative behaviour patterns in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), it thus expect to provide a very open framing for upcoming discussions and drawing some hypothesis about the role of CEE MEPs in making equality, both at the European level and in their respective countries of origin. Based upon data provided by pioneering studies, and empirically grounded with exploratory interviews carried out with members of the FEMM committee and basic data on individual legislative activity, it mainly aims at mapping the most accurate patterns which might differentiate women elected in post-socialist Europe, in terms of social/political background, law-making and discourse. The standing committee for Women rights and Gender equality is here taken as a laboratory for further hypothesis, rather than an autonomous policy arena. Frame analysis is also convoked, as a possible entry for further comparative analysis of the making of Equality in EU parliamentary politics. A (fragmentary) literature review If compared to the attention for women’s political representation at the national level or to the relatively important literature about women’s interest intermediation at the EU-level (not mentioning the interest for engendering EU legal order), references to women’s presence in the European Parliament are not so abundant. Of course, little attention was paid to political recruitment and legislative activity of MEPs in general, as long as the institution itself did not gain greater political credit, from the early 1990s onwards. Yet, even in this context, these references have remained quite incidental, as relatively high rates of female representation at the European Parliament were being convoked as an illustration of critical mass theories or – more recently – of their increasingly critical assessment (Norris, Lovenduski, 2001; Freedman, 2002; Bratton, 2005). This can be partly attributed to a weak interest for mainstream analysis of the European political arena. As an example, very few feminist scholars explicitly drew on classical Schmitt & Reif (1980) hypothesis about European elections as second-order. But it was nonetheless often taken for granted that recruiting more women for running European electoral campaigns was a consequence of their “less-at-stake” dimension. Yet, the greater openness of party gate-keepers towards female applicants received less attention than its potential contagious effect for domestic legislative recruitment (Kauppi, 1999). At the same time, non-gendered literature on the European parliament still fails to properly account for the specificity of female presence (Marrel, Payre, 2006). 2 When calling for an institutional theory of legislative behaviour in the European Parliament, Hix et alii (Hix, 2004; Hix, Raunio, Scully, 2003) thus leave no real space for accounting of sex differences in variation in MEPs behaviour. However, they give a great importance to the domestic institutional contexts of political recruitment and to the functioning patterns of the EP: two dimensions for which it can be assumed that gender also matters. Similarly, in a more sociological and ethical vein, Olivier Costa (2003) makes no specific reference to gender when questioning the very nature of the European mandate. Exploring the paradox of a mandate conceived as “general” (i.e, MEPs/agents do not represent a specific, territorialized group of citizens/principals), Costa stresses the fact that “the aporia of representation can only be overcome or accepted because of the existence of a political community”, which in the case of the EU, allegedly does not exist. But while such an aporia – the non-substantive dimension of the European mandate - can be extended to the situation of female MEPs, the author keeps distance with the studies dealing with the social representativeness of the European Parliament. As in Norris (1997) or Norris & Franklin (1997), the interest for the legitimacy of the European Parliament through reflecting social diversity, shed light on the gendered dimension of political representation at the EU level. As the concept of social representation refers “to the presence of political minorities in decision-making bodies, and the demands for parliaments to reflect the social composition of the electorate in terms of social, class, gender, ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities” (Phillips, 1993), it draws attention on the various reasons why the quality of representation can be flawed. But while a number of explanations to an altered social representation are convoked, such as electoral systems, the role of European parties in recruiting process or the salience of the European elections for voters, women’s presence would rather depend on a mixture of domestic institutional heritages and political culture. As far as political recruitment is concerned, complex patterns as those identified for Westminster (Norris & Lovenduski, 1995) would deserve to be confronted to the multi polar dimension of EU parliamentary politics. But the huge diversity of recruitment patterns, multiple political loyalties and parliamentary cultures at the European Parliament, has probably hindered this attempt. Here comes one of the main challenges for any gendered political recruitment or legislative study applied to the EP, which shall account for variations in a multi-level arena. We owe one of the first consistent effort to deal with this diversity to Hillary Footit’s focus (2002) on the discursive dimension of EU politics & policy making. Addressing the hypothesis of a “new language of politics” being developed by women in this new political arena, she built up her approach on the three main streams of the analysis of language in politics. But while paying attention to policy styles and gendered vocabulary/discourse, she nonetheless emphasizes the ethno-semantical dimension of female political discourse, stressing cultural identities and social backgrounds expressed through different discursive patterns. Although it does not consider the identity/backgrounds of representatives, frame analysis, as understood in the QUING project (Verloo, 2006), is also of added value. Analyzing and comparing the framing of major gendered issues at the EU level, it unravels a number of frames through text analysis, of which a substantial part is constituted of floor speeches at the European Parliament. Understandably, those are mostly expounded by members of the Women’s rights and Gender Equality Committee (FEMM) and provide an accurate picture of the different meanings of gender equality advocated at the EU level. Those, in particular, reveal the importance of non gendered frames in the making of equality 3 policies, such as Efficiency and Governance, along with gendered approaches in terms of Structural gender inequality or (Un)equal representation (Lombardo et al., 2008). Grounds for accounting of the “enlarged” presence of women in EU politics Four years after the beginning of Eastern Enlargement, there are some evidences that the literature about Female MEPs elected in the New Member States (NMS) might contribute to the cumulative work on the gendered dimension of EU parliamentary politics. Although such literature is scarce, it can now draw on a more complex assessment of the impact of Europeanization on the politics of gender in Central Eastern Europe. By 2004, very little had been written in terms of Europeanization and most of literature addressed the impact of EU accession from a normative, top-down perspective, assessing the “progress” of candidate countries toward the implementation of EU legal order. For sure, the need for collecting basic data did exist, since gender equality was not much at stake during the first stage of accession negotiations. As a consequence, it was highly questionable whether Eastern Enlargement would truly provide a window of opportunity to politicize gender in the accession countries (Roth, 2004, Forest, 2006). Moreover, it became clear that instead of fostering convergence, the accession process had a differential impact in the new member states. As an example, institutional tools and legislations have been created to promote gender equality, but varied greatly among countries, with respect to their institutional legacies. While a recent survey suggests that all new member states are equally considered to perform poorly (Falkner, Treib, 2008), such discrepancies should on the contrary draw attention on the influence of domestic political and institutional contexts on the Europeanization of gender. As put in evidence by sociological approaches, Europeanization has gone far beyond institutional adaptation, including cognitive framing (Neumayer & Dakowska, 2005 ; Jacquot, S. ; Woll, C., 2003). These studies have not only addressed the diagnosis and prognosis of equality issues in the new member states, and there has been a growing interest for the changing patterns of women’s collective action, as a core of women’s NGOs adopted a “shared representation of advocated interest, of what is at stake and of the legitimate means to promote it” (Balme, Chabanet, Whright, 2002). As a result, Women’s groups in CEE tend to be more eager to interfere with policy making (See: Forest, 2006b). Even more recently, the complex analysis of the Europeanization of broadly defined politics of gender in the enlarged European Union, has extended to its consequences in terms of women’s access to political decision making. EU incentives for the adoption of gender quotas at every electoral level, which prompted Slovenia to modify its Constitution in order to adopt new electoral rules, received a good deal of scholarly attention (Antić, Lokar, 2006). But so far, this interest has been developed quite narrowly, if compared to the abundant literature on women’s access to political power in post-communist Europe (Matland & Montgomery, 2003). No gender perspective applied to the developing research area on the Europeanization of domestic parliamentary politics (Auel, Benz, 2006), whereas there has been a growing concern for the gendered dimension of the first European election campaign, as shown in the international project covering 11 old and new member states which started in 2004 (Matonyte, 2006). 4 During the past two years, there has been also an attempt to map the differences embodied by newly elected female MEPs, in terms of recruitment patterns and sociological backgrounds. Understandably, such an attempt is embedded into the literature on female political elites on the national level, which has produced suggestive insights about their differentiated biographies and political cultures. Gabriella Ilonszki (2006) illustrates the most recent trend that consist to articulate Europeanization both at the domestic and the EU-level, stressing a first set of differentiating patterns. As shown by Beauvallet and Michon (2008b) in their first assessment of the changes introduced by Eastern Enlargement, educational background, political experience and ideological orientation are primarily concerned. And here we are, at the very first stage of a contribution to the literature on the gendered and substantive dimensions of EU parliamentary politics, with a promising sensibility for the differentiating, somehow path-dependent patterns of women’s political recruitment in post-socialist Europe. What might be our research agenda ? Increased diversity: Women’s presence after EU enlargement In order to provide a first answer to this question, I will draw upon the two research projects to which I am currently participating: a research on the “professionals of the EU” carried out by the Group of European Sociology at the University of Strasbourg2, and the QUING project, launched in 2006 under the VIth framework and dedicated to the quality of gender + equality policies in the EU and 29 European States. While the former attempts a sociological approach to Europeanization (see: Georgakakis, 2008), gathering data on different categories of actors, including the MEPs in a gendered perspective, the latter applies frame analysis to the making of Equality policies. Indeed, crossing the two perspectives, focusing both on actors and the policy outcome of their interactions, might result fruitful for a critical assessment of the contribution of women to the making of equality in the enlarged European Union. A focus on the most salient sociological and political features better accounts for the increased diversity of women’s presence at the EP after Eastern enlargement. This gives an opportunity to illustrate which kind of political arena is likely to emerge around European elections on the domestic level. An intellectual elite By 2007, 44% of women elected in the new member states held a doctorate, no less than 91% having completed a master’s degree and none but one MEP holding no academic degree. If compared to the respective proportions of doctors (20%) and M.A (56%) among MEPs elected in the EU-15, this give an accurate picture of the over- 2 Current researches are focusing on the European commissioners, the members of the secretariat of the European Council, as well as administrative actors or the media. As regarding MEPs, a database was constituted from the biographies of MEPs in December, 2006 and updated after the European elections in Romania and Bulgaria. There are indicators related to socio-demographical features (sex, age, level and type of degree); dispositions for internationalization (foreign degrees); political paths (type of mandates, career features); professional paths, as well as legislative indicators (committees, groups, delegations, bureau membership, number of reports, interventions in plenary sessions, questions asked, proposition of resolutions… 5 selection process which occurred during nation-wide political campaigns for European elections in Central and Eastern Europe3. Table 1. Educational background of MEPs, 2007 EU-15 New Member States % of total % of women % of total PhD 22% 16% 48% % of women 44% M.A 59% 52% 77% 91% 14% 11% 4% 28% 34% 6% 5% 10% 23% 56% 23% 22% 13% 16% 21% 13% 26% 11% 21% 29% Vocational structure Economy Science & Technology Health Law Humanities Source: Beauvallet & Michon, 2009, our update Such a picture is reinforced by the fact that this pattern commonly applies to all the new member states. However, as women MEPs do not form an homogeneous group, domestic patterns of political recruitment and social reproduction explain that the vocational structure of diplomas strongly differs from a country to another, with mathematics or journalism coming first in the Baltic states, economics in Hungary, while medicine, Law or social sciences prevail in other contexts. As an additional feature in relation with education, women (and men) elected in the new member states own foreign degrees more often than their colleagues from the EU-15 (especially in Hungary and the Czech Rep.). A group of professionals Levels of political experience also reveal the specificity of European campaigns, with over 40% of women MEPs elected in the new member States having experienced political mandate in a national constituency and more than a third in local politics. Those rates distinguish women elected in the new member States both from their male counterparts in the NMS and from their female colleagues elected in the EU-15, since about 63% of male MEPs elected in the new member States, but only 30% of the MEPs of both sexes elected in the EU-15 have had a parliamentary experience on the national level. Similarly, they are much more to have experienced executive governmental positions (20% as minister or deputy minister) than their Dutch and German colleagues (none) or the average for the EU-15 (11%). But at the same time, women MEPs from the new member States are less likely to have occupied decision making positions than their male fellow citizens elected at the EP. If the proportion of women having experienced political responsibilities in local politics reflects the one to be observed in national legislative bodies, and if educational level is traditionally high among post-socialist assemblies since 1990s, the accumulation of cultural and political resources seems to be typical of first elected MEPs in CEE. This to be illustrated by the number of MEPs who occupied governmental positions, at a time when the ratio of women ministers did not exceed 25% (Latvia) in their respective countries, usually scoring well below 10%. 3 Since no women MEP has been elected in Malta an Cyprus. 6 Differential resources Such patterns account of the differential resources of the women MEPs elected in the new member States, when compared to their female colleague from the EU-15. Traditionally, the latter present less socio-cultural properties than their male counterparts (Beauvallet, Michon, 2008), as they are more frequently holding intermediary professions or educational positions. Similarly, women MEPs elected in the EU-15 have less often completed five years of higher education than their male colleagues. They also used to be endowed with less political capital, not only for not having held national mandates or governmental positions in similar proportions, but also for counting with shorter careers within their respective parties. On the contrary, a high proportion of female MEPs from the EU-15 owe their presence at the EP to a longterm involvement in civil society organizations. Women elected in the NMS clearly distinguish themselves from their female colleagues at the EP. As most of them have completed 5 years of higher education, they had usually occupied managerial or senior academic positions before being elected. In terms of political resources, even those who did not hold national parliamentary mandate have usually strong party experience or good connections due to their former activity (well-known journalists, national experts). Differentiated political polarization Additionally, as noted by Ilonszki (2006, 11), unlike their colleagues from old member states, “female MEPs from the former socialist countries are better represented in the People’s Party Parliamentary Group (EPP-ED) and are also present in small, antiEU groups”. While the feminization of the European Parliament was, from its early stage, spurred by left-wing parties (Norris, Franklin, 1997), by the end of 2008, 43% of the newly elected women ranked among right-wing groups (36% sitting for the EPP) ; 22,4% on behalf of the ALDE and only 25,9% among left-wing groups, the two independent MEPs being close to the right4. Yet, this not only illustrates the political orientation of most of governments in Central Europe, as some women have been elected on the lists of parties which play the role of challengers or even outsiders on the domestic political scenes. This is not only the case of anti-EU actors, such as the League of Polish Families (LPR). As an example, the victory of newly established, centre-right, Platform of Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria, (GERB) enabled the election of 3 female MEPs, in an attempt to capitalize the topic EU-gender equality in the national political arena. We might also consider the situation of independent candidates, such as the former chief redactor of the Czech public TV, Jana Bobošíková. Eagerness to get involved into EP legislative activity As shown by Beauvallet and Michon, “the modalities of appropriation of their mandates by women MEPs strongly depend on social and political features” (2009). Among those elected in the EU-15, MEPs enjoying strong political resources inherited from the national level, have shown little eagerness to get involved into EP activity, privileging opportunities on the national political scene. For these women, mandate have been traditionally shortened, and parliamentary activity scarce. Yet, the most common pattern found can be characterized as an “over-involvement” in parliamentary activity, as a strategy to compensate the more limited resources of women elected in the old member States (be they political or educational).These forms of devotion to the 4 Our own calculations, source: www.europarl.europa.eu. 7 institution and over-involvement in their role by newcomers offer the possibility to reinforce an often fragile legitimacy and to acquire political credit. With fewer political resources and know-how, numerous women MEPs claim to be hard workers, showing a kind of “good will” toward the institution. Although such strategies, to be noticed among MEPs of the EU-15, can be embedded in diverse domains and within diverse committees, women tend to join secondary, less legitimate, committees that partly reflect the structure of their social properties. To the opposite, they are underrepresented in the most prestigious committees, which are not necessarily the most central to the EU policy-making (Beauvallet & Michon, 2008). “Good will” and “over-involvement” can also be illustrated by legislative records, as female MEPs from the old member States have drafted an average of 1.85 reports in 2004-2007, close to the 2.05 of their male counterparts endowed with more political resources. Understandably, since they feature more systematically as newcomers, but also given they are endowed with higher political and educational resources, women elected in the NMS have been less eager to get involved into the European legislative process than their colleagues from the EU-15. Nonetheless, with an average record of 1.25 reports drafted in 2004-2008, they still do much better than men MEPs elected in the NMS (1.0). At the same time, women MEPs from Central and Eastern Europe have shown lower interest for less prestigious committees, which are also those at the core of the EU legislative activity (Internal market, consumer policy) and have been more eager to join foreign or monetary affairs in order to ensure visibility in their home-countries. In that respect, they do share common perspectives with their male colleagues, considering the European mandate as a shortcut toward domestic politics… if not a U-turn. Often seen as peripheral from a Western point of view, Central-Eastern Europe’s polities remains central to their own political actors and a Czech politician, now sitting at the EP, was recently considered “politically dead” in its own country. The parliamentary practices of women MEPs, however, cannot be understood separately from their social and political properties and therefore, should be related to the specificities of their political recruitment. European elections in the new member states: still second order ? At a first stage, these basic features urge to pay attention to the conditions of the electoral competition on the domestic level. Did European elections differed from legislative campaigns, in terms of salient issues, recruitment patterns or typology of competing parties ? As this falls outside the scope of this contribution, I will only suggest the basis for further interpretation. As soon as 1980, Karlheinz Reif and Hermann Schmitt had identified the main patterns of European elections as second order: Less at stake, due to the complexity of the European political system and to the (then) weak competences of the European parliament. This to be related to lower and lower turnouts Ruling party loses (European elections to be used as a sanction) Marginal or newly established political actors gain seats Did such patterns apply to the elections in the new member states, and which have been the consequences in terms of (female) political recruitment ? It is obvious that the less-a-stake dimension contribute to explain the unprecedented low turnouts experienced during these elections in former socialist countries (see table 2). Similarly, 8 the rule of “government party lose” often applied, European campaigns mainly addressing domestic issues. Concerning the typology of running parties, on the one hand, institutional parliamentary parties usually kept control over electoral competition, even if some domestic outsiders did gain greater importance on the occasion of European elections,. Yet, on the other hand, gate-keepers’ control over applicant selection revealed to be looser than during domestic elections, thus allowing the nomination of quite different profiles, including women. Nevertheless, this shall not be interpreted as a systematic effort to bring more women into politics: in the Czech Republic, female candidates were under-represented, if compared to national elections (Rakušanová, Mansfeldová, 2005). Yet, female candidates usually enjoyed better position on party lists, as well as increased political visibility, in the absence of national party leaders. The Czech case also illustrates that if not particularly sensitive to new political issues such as gender equality, European campaigns gave greater importance to female candidates, supported by higher preferential votes. There are also some empirical evidence of higher turnouts among female voters (Rakušanová, 2004). All in all, it might be assumed that the less-at-stake dimension of European elections remained true in the case of the new member states, and revealed to be even more favourable to female candidates, as shown by the greater gender gap between national assemblies and delegation to the European Parliament (fig 1). Tab. 2 European elections: turnout (2004 and 2007*) Pays BG* CZ EST H LT LV PL RO* SLO SK % 28,6% 27,9% 26,9% 38,5% 41,2% 48,2% 20,4% 29,5% 28,3% 16,7% SK Moy. Moy. UE PECO 27 Fig.1 Feminization of national delegations to the EP (2007) 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% BG CZ EST H LT LV E lections européennes PL RO SLO Elections législatives Sources : electoral committees & Women and men in decision making, Brussels, E Commission, 2008 Yet, the increased diversity of female presence after EU enlargement also convokes long-term patterns of political recruitment and other cultural/demographical aspects peculiar to post-socialist countries. 9 The old comrade, the preacher woman and the Roma: the Janus complex of the FEMM committee These owe to be mentioned in a more specific way, exploring what I suggest to address as the “Janus complex” of the women of the FEMM committee. The Women’s right and gender equality committee, with its 39 members, of which only 10 representatives (9 women) elected in the Eastern European new member states, of course does not provide a statistically significant picture of the whole institution. However, as it is directly involved in the making of EU gender equality policies, it permits to address the central question: did newcomers make a difference? In terms of political orientation, the 2007 version of the FEMM committee reflects the situation of the EP. While the Right/Left ratio among commission members elected in the old member states (22/17) is similar to the ratio in the whole institution, 7 of 9 women elected in the new member states belong to a right-wing group. More strikingly, the FEMM committee embodies some of the most salient differences introduced by the presence of CEE member states, such as their alignment on more traditional conceptions of gender roles and equality issues. The controversial nomination of Slovak Christian democrat Anna Zaborska at the head of the committee accounts of this positioning. Well-known for her opposal to abortion, she aroused suspicion about her ability to chair an institution traditionally committed in favour of new equality measures (albeit with a much more limited contribution of social actors such as women's movements to its internal policy making process than the European Commission). On the Slovak political scene, she kept holding firmly her anti-abortion positions as her home party took advantage of its presence in the government to jeopardize the adoption of an anti-discrimination act to comply with EU directives (See: Forest, 2006a). Simultaneously, she adopted a rather conciliatory leadership in the committee, leaving the most traditional conceptions of gender roles to Polish LPR deputy Urszula Krupa. Their respective speeches on the issue of abortion illustrate these different discursive strategies, to be related with their positions in the FEMM committee, but also on the domestic scene5. Despite completely open and lively discussions, the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, in view of the divergent opinions expressed, was unable to reach a consensus on a common standpoint. (…) I should like to point out that a woman who feels compelled to have an abortion never does so with relish. (…) This personal upheaval may be associated with extreme situations, when the woman is compelled to stop work, is deserted, raped or suffering from other physical or mental trauma or abuse in a family, economic or social environment. The situation today is a manifestation of the failure of a developed human society which is incapable of contributing to the needs of all human beings, including the poorest, smallest and weakest. We must work towards an internal stability pact, which will give people 5 Mrs Zaborska, a nation-wide respected oncologist, classically used her professional prestige to boost her political career inside KDH. She is now taking advantage of her experience at the head of the FEMM committee to achieve new responsibilities inside KDH and EPP. Mrs Krupa, while being herself a doctor, has long been involved in the most traditionalist circles in Poland, as a redactor of populist, anti-Semitic Radio Maryja. Her home party, LPR has lost most of its representative to the Polish Sejm in 2007. 10 more trust in society, supporting inter-generational solidarity and enabling us to engage together in this direction. Anna Zaborska on the Dutch boat of the 'Women on Waves' association, Sept. 16th, 2004. Plenary session records Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank God for giving me the chance to speak before Parliament on the most important issue of modern times, namely the defence of life. This is of particular significance at a time when over 50 million children are killed each year in their mothers’ wombs, which amounts to genocide on a considerably larger scale than the millions of Holocaust victims. (…)The killing of a child in its mother’s womb is not a human right. What kind of rights do ‘Women on Waves’ therefore wish to defend, if the leader of this organisation was not even entitled to practice medicine in the countries where they landed, and nonetheless prescribed life-threatening hormonal medication to induce early abortion, as well as publicising drugs which can terminate pregnancy and carrying out abortions?I wonder whether twenty-first century Europeans really do desire a freedom allowing free rein to people with disturbed personalities, no conscience, higher feelings, dignity or compassion, that have of late been described as immature, in order to not awaken dormant consciences. After all, such people were formerly classed as psychopaths. Urzsula Krupa, Ibid. However, under Anna Zaborská's presidency, the FEMM committee ceased to be this “indefectible advocate of the developping of EU equality policies” (Jacquot, 2009), adopting a less transformative, mild-definition of gender rights. As a further evidence of its ambivalence, gender mainstreaming has been conceived as a mean to mainstream equality in less contentious areas, such as superior education, work-family conciliation and reproductive health, which has been clearly prioriticized over sexual freedom, that turned to be highly contenious among committee members, as those do not present anymore the same features as regarding their involvement towards feminism.This conservative turn, which is the product of political alignments at the EP and a non-direct consequence of Eastern Enlargement, is to be noticed in Anna Zaborská's personal standpoints as a chair of the committee (Zaborská, 2006). Differences and potential discrepancies are even greater if we consider the profile of two of the most salient women MEPs at the FEMM committee. As a former regional functionary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, among the 5 only MEPs elected on the list of a still genuinely communist Party, Věra Flasarová experienced the suspiscion of her colleagues: „we had to prove that we were normal people and that it was possible to work with us“, she said6. This situation prompted her to adopt a strategy of accountability towards her voters and a strategy of good will in terms of law making in the area of gender equality. This graduate of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in Moscow (1987) thus published several documents on the issue, with the financial support of the European United Left (EUL) group, also issuing a report on the discrimination against women in the access to university. On the domestic scene, she has been so far the only woman holding a public mandate to publicly address 6 Interview with Věra Flasarová, Strasbourg, April 2008 11 the issue of feminism. If she does not endorse the label of feminist, so much depreciated in CEE, her position consistently differs from the usual pattern to be noted among female politicians in CEE: „Feminist? Well, I don't know what it is about, and I don't like anyway”. As a representative of the hungarian liberal party FIDESZ, Livia Jaroka is one of the two first Roma deputies ever elected at the European parliament. The year of equal opportunities celebrated by the EU in 2007, made her political contribution even more salient, as she issued a report on the discrimination against Roma women. Since, she has been the main voice of the Roma community on the parliamentary ground, publicly contesting the political management by the European institutions of the crisis initiated in Italy in 2008. The case of this representative of the Roma community not only questions the general, non-substantive dimension of the European mandate. It also draws attention on which might be the most differentiated contribution of newly elected female MEPs to the making of equality policies: their attempt to address gender inequalities along with a broader range of discriminations. CEE MEPs: more eager to put intersectionnality into practice? It does not fall into the scope of this paper to deal with the growing litterature on intersectionality (for a theoretical assesment, see Hancock, 2007). It is enough to mention that although the pursuit of equality in a sense broadened to other inequality axes than gender is supposed to become a policy priority for the EU and its member states, „very little attention is paid to both structural and political intersectionality in policy-making“ (Verloo, 2006, 214)7. This not only applies to the member states, but also to the EU policy making process itself. Legislative activity If we examine their contribution to the making of equality policies under the present term (2004-2008), CEE women MEPs seem to be not much distinguishable from their colleagues elected in old member states. This is particularly true in terms of legislative activity, with a ratio of 85 interventions/MEP in plenary session, to be compared to the 80 of the 31 other members of FEMM, and a ratio of 1,1 report issued per MEP, close to the 1,25 for the other members. Yet, the proportion of legislative acts and speeches making references to other inequality axes, such as poverty, ethnicity, disabilities, health or age, is much higher among the representative of new member states, since almost every submitted report complies with this objective of EU policy making, while about 10% of speeches putting intersectionality into words – 5% among the other FEMM members. Poverty is the most quoted related issue to gender inequality, with age and health. Since 2007, ethnicity has been also increasingly quoted. Should we therefore consider that the representatives elected in the new member states are more likely „to make intersectionality happens“, beyond official discourses ? At least one common behavioural pattern should prevent any hasty conclusion. At the same time, If compared to their „western“ colleagues of the FEMM committee, they have been more concerned by their second membership in a standing committe of the European parliament. Apart from the nature of this second membership, it drained over 80% of their interventions in plenary sessions, gender equality being 7 I owe this quotation to Maria Bustelo (2008) 12 addressed only in 18,8% of their floor-speeches. Similarly, it was at stake in less than 1/10 of submitted recommandation proposals. On the contrary, gender equality was the core of almost every reports submitted, thus pointing the complex sexual division of parliamentary work and the relatively minor importance of gender issues for building political legitimacies at the European parliament. A weaker commitment toward gender equality? Therefore, it can be infered that the greater concern of CEE MEPs for multiple discriminations, has developed to the expense of gender equality and illustrates a weaker committment toward this issue. Yet, it remains clear that siting at the FEMM committee does not constitute a label of gender-friendliness, as shown for instance by the case of its polish members. But the relatively lower commitment of the new member State’s representatives toward the issue, regardless of their political alignment, has to be related to their differentiated social and political properties. Unlike a number of their colleagues from the EU-15, members of the FEMM committee from the new member States have a limited experience as activits in social organizations (feminist or ecologist for left-wing MEPs, pro-family or profesional for most of right-wing deputies). Moreover, only two of nine had a previous commitment within women’s organizations (Hungarian Zita Gurmai as an official of the MSZP8 women’s organization and the Socialist International, and liberal Estonian deputy Siiri Oviir, as president of the Estonian women’s Union since 1996. This points out the limited (if not negative) impact of a commitment towards women’s issues in their respective national polities, as those have been deeply discredited under State socialism. Despite the Europeanization of Equality policies during the accession process has generated new policy instruments and a certain amount of public attention in domestic parliamentary politics, Gender Equality hardly constitutes a legitimate area of policy making. As a consequence, it provides limited opportunities for capitalizing an experience at the EU parliamentary level, as well as a limited attention on the domestic scene. This feature, that commonly applies to CEE countries, might prevent female MEPs to opt for a strong commitment toward gender equality. Assessing the impact of the Eastern Enlargement on the making of Equality at the EU-level: a plausible research agenda In conclusion, we shall consider the overall impact of the Eastern Enlargement on the making of Equality, through the presence of women MEPs elected in the new member States. Among other unfullfilled predictions as regarding the (negative) impact of Eastern Enlargement, a number of actors expected the EU-27 to be much less favourable to gender Equality than the EU-15. While the accession of Sweden, Finland and Austria has constituted an impetus for reaching Equality, the accession of 10 former socialist countries, with their public opinions sceptical about feminism and lower rates of female representation, should be accompanied by a backlash in terms of representing women 8 Hungarian Worker’s Party (Social-democrat). 13 Yet, such predictions deeply underestimated the changes introduced by the Europeanization of Equality policies in the candidate countries (both in terms of public action and collective action). Additionaly, it paid no attention to the specificities of political recruitment in relation with second-order elections, which proved to be favourable to female candidates. As a result, NMS’s delegations to the European Parliament have contributed to maintain the relatively high feminization rate of the institution. However, as in the case of old member States, this shall not predict any contagious effect in national constituencies. But It remains true that Eastern Enlargement has increased the range of „gender regimes“ in the European Union. Since 2004, the EU is counting with new members, as Poland, where reproductive rights are more often at stake. In these conditions, what is the actual contribution of women MEPs elected in the new member States? This assesment shall consider their differentiated patterns of recruitment and legislative activity, as well as their contribution to the framing of the issues addressed under the chapter of Gender equality. As regarding the two first sets of elements, this paper attempts to provide a balanced description: albeit more right-wing oriented and less committed toward social issues than their female colleagues in the EU-15, these women are much more endowed in political and educational resources. For this reason, they are less likely to suffer from the same mechanisms of sexual discrimination in their access to power (or valuable) positions within the EP. At the same time, this make them slightly less eager to get actively involved in the legislative activity of the Parliament, which is confirmed by lower report-submitting records. Concerning their actual contribution to the making of equality policies, it should be interpreted in terms of framing. For the purposes of such an assessment, we could draw on a broad definition of frames, as “an organizing principle that transforms fragmentary or incidental information into a structured and meaningful problem, in which a solution is implicitly or explicitly included” (Verloo 2006b, 19). A definition that refers to the various dimensions in which a given policy problem can be represented and does not account only for the policy outcome, but also for the form in which the problem is diagnosed and debated. On the one hand, we could take into account the interventions of these women in plenary sessions on issues such as reproductive rights, work-life balance, sexual orientation discrimination or equal pay. On the other hand, this would permit interpreting the different meanings given to equality within the FEMM committee, and the role played by different patterns of recruitment and legislative behaviour. As a possible result of further investigations, it should not been taken for granted that the VIth legislature of the European Parliament (2004-2009) will prove to be less committed toward Gender equality due to the Eastern enlargement. Yet, it is true that so far, no major legislative step has been taken during the current term. And a frame analysis of EU documents regarding reproductive issues suggests that a Sexual Health frame is being articulated, to the expense of a Protect Equality and Sexual freedom one, in an area where the EU did not extend its competences. Similarly, Good governance and Quality of legislation are more often referred to than Transform the sexual division of Labour for supporting pro-equality measures (Lombardo et al., 2008). Even measures aiming at reconciling work and private-life, as the extension of maternity leave up to 18 weeks to be discussed by the EP in 2009, do not challenge the sexual division of roles in intimacy. It can also be argued that the project of a new Gender equality directive, 14 launched in 2006, has been merged into the General anti-discrimination directive, to be adopted in 2009 by the EP. However, the (right-oriented) polarization of European politics, possibly the implementation of gender mainstreaming and the stronger emphasis on other grounds of discrimination than gender, have played a much more important role than the increasing diversity of women reprensentatives after Eastern Enlargement. A diversity that constitutes a new challenge for the (non) substantive dimension of the European mandate and the ability of women to represent women in a multi-level polity. Bibliography: Antic, M., Lokar, S. (2006) «The Balkans: from total rejection to gradual acceptance of gender quotas», in Dahlerup, D. (ed.), Women, Quotas and Politics, London/New York, Routledge, pp. 138-167. Auel, K., Benz, A. (2006), The Europeanization of Parliamentary Democracy, London, Routledge. Balme R., Chabanet D., Wright V. (dir.) (2002), L’Action collective en Europe, Paris, Presses de Science Po Beauvallet, W. ; Michon, S. (2008a), « L’impact du mode de scrutin européen sur l’élection des femmes au Parlement européen en France : une dynamique associant règles juridiques et stratégies politiques », Politique européenne, n°24, pp. 123-143. Beauvallet, W. ; Michon, S. (2008b), « General Patterns of Women’s representation at the European Parliament », Paper presented at the 4th Pan-European Conference on EU Politics, Riga. Beauvallet, W. ; Michon, S. (2009), « Les femmes au Parlement européen, effets des modes de scrutin, des stratégies et des ressources politiques », Swiss Political Science Review, vol 14, n°4, forthcoming. Börzel T.A, Risse T. (2003), « Conceptualizing the Domestic Impact of Europe», in Featherstone K., Radaelli C. The Politics of Europeanization, New-York, Oxford University Press, pp. 57-80 Bratton, K. (2005), «Critical Mass Theory Revisited: The Behavior and Success of Token Women in State Legislatures», Politics & Gender, Vol. 1, n°1, pp. 97-125 Bustelo, M. (2008), Spain: A better performer in gender than in intersectionality. Paper presented at the 4th Pan-European Conference on EU Politics, Riga. Caporaso J.A, Jupille J. (2001), «The Europeanization of Gender Equality Policy and Domestic Structural Change» in Green Cowles M., Caporaso J.A, Risse T. (eds) Transforming Europe: Europeanization and Domestic Change, Ithaca (NY), Cornell University Press, pp. 21-43 15 Dakowska D., Neumayer L. (2005), « Repenser l’impact de l’adhésion », Politique européenne, n°15, pp. 5-27 Celis, K. (2005), «Les élues féminines et la représentation des femmes : réflexions méthodologiques », in Marques-Pereira, Meier, P. (eds.) Genre et politique en Belgique et en francophonie. Bruxelles, Academia-Bruylant. Childs, S. (2001), , "In Their Own Words: New Labour Women and the Substantive Representation of Women", British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 3 (2), pp. 173-90. Childs, S. (2003), « The Complicated Relationship Between Sex, Gender, and the Substantive Representation of Women», Unpublished contribution to the 2nd ECPR Conference, Marburg Costa, O. ; Navarro, J. (2003), « La représentation au Parlement européen. Qui représentent les parlementaires européens ? », in Saurugger, S. (ed.), Les modes de représentation dans l’Union européenne, Paris, L’Harmattan, pp. 123-152 Falkner, G. ; Treib, O. (2008), « Three Worlds of Compliance of Four ? The EU15 compared to New Member States », Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 46, n°2, pp.293-314 Footit, H. (2002), Women, Europe and the New Languages of Politics, Londres, NewYork : Continuum Forest, M. (2006a), « L’européanisation des « politiques du genre » dans les nouveaux Etats membres d’Europe centrale », Politique européenne, no 20, pp. 99-119 Forest, M. (2006b), « Emerging Gender Interest Groups in the New Member States: the Case of the Czech Republic », Perspectives on European Politics and Society (Routledge), vol 7, no 2, pp. 170-185 Freedman, J. (2002), «Women in the European Parliament», Parliamentary Affairs, Vol. 55, pp. 179-188 Georgakakis, D. (2008), « La sociologie historique et politique de l’Union européenne : un point de vue d’ensemble et quelques contre points », Politique européenne, no 25, pp. 53-85 Hancock, A. (2007), “When Multiplication Does not Equal quick Addition: Examining Intersectionality as a Research Paradigm”, Perspectives on Politics, vol. 5; no 1, pp. 6379 Hix, S., Raunio, T. & Scully, R. (2003), “Fifty years on. Research on the European Parliament”, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 41, pp. 191-202 16 Hix, S. (2004), Electoral Institutions and Legislative Behaviour: Explaining Voting Defection in the European Parliament, World Politics, 56, pp. 194-223 Ilonszki, G. (2006), “ Women in politics: The European Union. and Hungary.” in: Ildikó Nagy, Marietta Pongrácz, István György. Tóth (eds.), Changing Roles: Report on the Situation of Women and Men in Hungary 2005. Budapest: TÁRKI Social Research Institute. pp. 56-68 Jacquot, S. ; Woll, C. (2003), “Usage of European Integration. Europeanisation fro, a sociological perspective”, European Integration online Papers, vol. 7, no 3, http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/2003-012b.thm Jacquot, S. (2009), “Les fémocrates européennes, de l'âge d'or au déclin, 1975-2000”, unpublished workshop paper, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, February 2009. Kauppi, N. (1999), « Power or subjection ? French Women Politicians in the European Parliament », The European Journal of Women’s Studies, Vol. 6, pp. 329-340 Lombardo, E., Rolandsen Agustín, L., F. De la Vega, A. (2008), Series of LARG comparative reports: The European Union, QUING Project, UCM, Madrid. Marrel, G. ; Payre, R. (2006), « Des carrières au parlement. Longévité des députés et institutionnalisation de l’arène parlementaire », Politique européenne n°18, pp. 69-104 Matland, R. E. ; Montgomery, K. A., (2003), Women’s Access to Political Power in Post-communiste Europe, Oxford University Press Mateo Díaz, M. (ed.) (2005), Representing women? Female legislators in West European Parliaments, ECPR Press. Mazey, S. (2000), « Integrating Gender, Intellectual and Real World Mainstreaming », in: Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 7, no 3 Norris, P. ; Lovenduski, J., (1995), Political representation and recruitment : gender, race and class in the British Parliament, Cambridge (NY) : Cambridge University Press Norris, P. ; Lovenduski, J. (2001). « Blair’s Babes: Critical Mass Theory, Gender, and Legislative Life », Faculty Papers, JFK School of Government, Harvard University Radaelli C. «The Europeanization of Public Policy», in Featherstone K., Radaelli C. (eds) The Politics of Europeanization, New York, Oxford University Press, p. 27-56. Radaelli C. (2004), «Europeanisation: Solution or Problem», European Integration online Papers, Vol. 8, n°16, http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/2004-016a.thm Rakušanová, P. ; Mansfeldová, Z. (2005), «Gender analysis of the 2004 European Parliament elections from the point of view of political parties, voters and the media. The Czech Case», Prague : Institut of sociology 17 Rakušanová, P. (2004), Genderová diferenciace účasti ve volbách do Evropského parlamentu » [gender differentiation in voters' turnout to the 2004 european election], Socioweb 09/2004, SoU [Institut of sociology] http://www.socioweb.cz/index.php3? disp=aktuality&shw=187&lst=114 Reif, K. ; Schmitt, H. (1980), «Nine second-order national elections. A conceptual framework for the anyalysis of european elections results », European Journal of Political Research, n°8, pp. 3-44 Roth S. (2004), « One Step Forwards, One Step Backwards, One Step Backwards: The Impact of EU Policies on Gender Relations in Central and Eastern Europe», Transitions, Vol. XLIV, n° 1, pp. 15-27 Rueschemeyer M. (1998), Women in the Politics of Post-communist Eastern Europe, Sharpe Shaw J. (2000), « Importing Gender : The Challenge of Feminism and the Analysis of the EU Legal Order », Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 7, n° 3, pp.405-431 Verloo, M. (2006a), “Multiple Inequalities, Intersectionality and the European Union”, European Journal of Women's studies, vol 13, no 3, pp. 211-228 Verloo, M. (2006b), «Mainstreaming Gender Equality in Europe. A Frame Analysis Approach», The Greek Review of Social Research, n° 117, pp. 11-32 Zaborská, Anna (2006), contribution to the volume Pari o opportunità tra uomini e donne. Le buone pratiche per l'oggi: offrire pareri o prendere decisioni?, Rome: Camera dei deputati. 18