Croatia - Gender policies in the context of the forthcoming elections and EU membership
[Zagreb, 25 October 2011] In light of the approaching Election Day as well as EU accession referendum, EWL member organisation in Croatia, the Centre for Women’s Studies in Zagreb, organised a round table on the topic of gender policies.
The logic behind the event was to present and evaluate gender policies in preelection programmes of the two most powerful partiers on Croatian political scene – Croatian democratic Community and Socialist Democrat Party. The other point that the organisers wanted to make is to share the experiences from EU countries regarding gender policies and gender equality in order to map Croatian successes and failures along the preaccession way and to point out the job that yet needs to be done. In other words, the intention was to shed the light on both domestic and international policy challenges.
The speakers of the round table were Astrid Thors, member of Swedish People’s Party from Finland, former MP of the European Parliament and Minister of Migration and Europe Affairs in Finnish Government, Sonja Lokar, president of Central and Eastern European Network for Gender Issues from Slovenia, Josip Šipi? from The Institute of Economics, Zagreb¬, Ana Lovrin, president of Croatian Parliament Committee for Judiciary from Croatian Democratic Party, Gordana Sobol, president of Croatian Parliament Committee for Gender Equality from Socialist Democrat Party and Tajana Broz from women CSO Centre for Education, Counselling and Research.
After welcoming words and introduction from the organisers given by Rada Bori?, executive director of Center for Women’s Studies, the word has taken the moderator of the event Marjeta Šinko, member of the Center for Women’s Studies and assistant at Faculty of Political Science. Astrid Thors has held a presentation on the necessity of trans party alliances between female politicians - Finnish women, first in the world to be MPs, still need a women´s parliamentary network? , while Sonja Lokar was talking about Slovenian efforts to keep certain advantages from the previous socialist system and to bring it as a “dowry” into the EU - Window of opportunity is closing fast!
In order to explain the phenomena of growing participation of women in right wing parties, Josip Šipi? has presented his research on the politics of motherhood. Ana Lovrin and Gordana Sobol have both given the overview of their parties’ programmes and results regarding gender policies while Tajana Broz has outlined the analysis of political programmes of both parties which has given a whole new perspective on the matter.
The round table is a part of a larger project AD ACTE – Anti-Discrimination ACtions Towards Equality of women and men which is being implemented in partnership with Central and Eastern European Network for Gender Issues from Slovenia and Serbian National Council from Zagreb. The project is funded by the European Union.
