Equal Opportunities For Women and Men in the European Accession Programme (EOWM) is part of the larger program called Monitoring the Political Criteria in the EU Accession Process Initiative undertaken by the Open Society Institute.

Although gender equality has been achieved in the “books” of all EU candidate countries, women have not yet practically benefited from this equality since institutional mechanisms for implementation are missing.
To aid the integration of gender issues in the accession process, the project seeks to encourage and aid candidate countries to:
• Screen and analyse their domestic legislation on equal rights and equal opportunities for women and men in relationship to the Community Law in order to harmonize the domestic legal framework with the EU relevant standards on the matter as having in view the integration process;
• Underscore the importance of the legal and policy initiative concerning equal treatment and equal rights for women and men within the negotiation process, as these initiatives are a priority for the EU institutions;
• Enhance the accession into the EU by accelerating the review and shape of the legal framework according the current standards;
• Identify measures that have to be taken in creating an appropriate legal and institutional framework for bringing to life the principle of equal rights and equal treatment for women and men.

Download the monitoring reports in English!
2003 Equal Opportunities for Women and Men in Hungary (word document)
2005 Equal Opportunities for Women and Men: Monitoring Law and Practice in Hungary (pdf document)

Other publications, such as countries' reports (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Turkey), Project overview and Executive Summaries  are available online from  here.

Program manager: Zsuzsa Lestál