Gender equality in the candidate countries is a major principle in the EU enlargement process. The acquis communautaire sets forth the primary law, the treaty that establishes the European Community, secondary law, which derives from other EU treaties and “soft law”, which refers to policies adopted and promoted by the EU. In the area of women’s rights, most EU gender equality policy falls in this last category of soft law. The website of the European Women’s Lobby gives an overview of the primary law, secondary law and soft law instruments which set forth the requirements on gender equality.

In the European Union, gender equality policy has focused mainly on non-discrimination in employment settings, including combating sexual harassment. The European Women’s Lobby, as well as other NGOs, has urged the European Union to consider the multiple forms of discrimination that women face and urges the EU to adopt a comprehensive and integrated approach to gender mainstreaming. A Shadow Directive, proposed by the European Women’s Lobby, gives the following example of “women as a group will never have the same opportunities on the labour market or in society, as long as 1 out of 5 women experiences domestic violence or if equality in the private sphere is not achieved, with women still doing 80% of all care, community and household work.” Thus, the European Women’s Lobby proposes that EU gender equality directives cover such critical areas as parity of participation in decision-making, equal access to and supply of goods and services, the right to reconcile family and working life, social protection, social security and social benefits, access to education, family and society-based violence against women and the images of women and men portrayed in advertising and the media.

The Open Society Institute (OSI) EU Accession Monitoring Program has published a report which assesses the status of equal opportunities, both de jure and de facto, in seven candidate countries: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland the Romania. The 2002 report, Monitoring the EU Accession Process: Equal Opportunities for Men and Women includes concrete recommendations on how each country can ensure full compliance with EU Directives related to equal opportunities and also flags areas of concern for the candidate countries. Both the full report and an overview are available on the website of the Program on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men in the European Accession Process (EOWM).

In addition, the website of the EU Accession Monitoring Program of OSI provides users with access to news, reports and a library of information about both EU member States and candidate countries. Users can search the library both by country and by topic, including information on equal opportunities.