Kritiek op nieuwe EU-lidstaten inzake ongelijke behandeling mannen en vrouwen (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A new report has slammed new EU member states for the disparities women face in jobs, wages and political representation.

Bulgaria, Estonia and Slovakia top the bad stakes as the countries with 25 to 30 percent pay gap between men and women - which is almost twice the current EU average of 15 per cent.

The report by the Open Society Institute argues that the countries took the necessary legal measures to improve gender equality, but these have so far not been "translated into a meaningful impact on the daily lives of men and women".

The survey was presented at the European parliament on Wednesday (4 May).

The paper directed the most criticism at the existing pay gap in the new member states, as it has remained at almost the same level as two years before the 2004 enlargement.

Hardly any women politicians

Having more women in politics is still more of an academic desire in the region rather than a reality.

"While women are slightly more than 50 per cent of the population in Hungary _ as in all the region _ they make up only 9 per cent of Hungary's parliament," says the report.

The figures are even worse in cabinet representation, with two women ministers in Lithuania, one in Poland and none in Slovakia.

According to Zita Gurmai, a Hungarian vice-chair of the Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, "These findings show us that we need to drastically increase our efforts to get legally binding EU instruments addressing gender equality in decision-making".

She said more effort should be made to support gender mainstreaming in policies, as the new member states and candidate countries generally consider it as a possible tool to tackle the lack of equality in employment, but tend not to use it in practice.