Feminist NGOs and the European Union: Contracting Opportunities and Strategic Response

Abstract

European women's organizations were among the first social movements to recognize the European Union (EU) as an important context for claim-making. From the mid-1990s, feminist groups had secured a representation to this transnational opportunity structure in the form of the European Women's Lobby (EWL), which receives EU funding, has access to policy setting, and is credited with a role in the construction and consolidation of EU gender equality policy. More recently, the EWL has experienced a contraction in the EU political opportunity context, a function of Eurocrisis dynamics that deem gender equality too costly at a time of austerity. EU progress on gender equality has stalled, with most policy advanced through non-binding or soft law mechanisms. This work assesses the implications of these shifts for the strategies and patterns of mobilization employed by the EWL as it works to exploit soft law opportunities and develop collaborative strategies with other EU non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and in other intergovernmental fora to promote a gendered analysis of the economic crises. Though this latter strategy is a relatively late and weak engagement on austerity, it marks a departure in strategic terms. The organization has also adopted strategies aimed at compensating for declining resources including seeking out new resource streams and cohering closely to topics where EU funding opportunities remain. Analysis of the EWL's response to this challenging political opportunity structure allows for an assessment of how feminist NGOs deal with austerity-based reductions in the political space and financial support for feminist mobilization and gender equality measures across Europe.

Keywords::

• Gender equality
• international NGOs
• women's rights
• gender mainstreaming
• austerity
• political and economic opportunities
• international governance
• European Union

Notes

^1. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the secretary general of the EWL in June 2011 and September 2011, with a past vice president of the EWL and director of its observatory on VAW in July 2012, with three officials from DG Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, and with an official responsible for relations with equality anti-discrimination NGOs in September 2011. These interviews were augmented by face-to-face and phone interviews and email contact with the two national member organizations of the EWL in September and October 2011, June 2012 and October 2013. National members are kept anonymous due to the small sample size and the sensitivities of their contributions.

^2. I do not include data on other EU institutional contexts including the European Council or the EP. This said, this research is informed by recent scholarship that has assessed longer term shifts in relations between the EWL and the EP, documenting the shift away from exclusive funding for the EWL to a more competitive funding context for this feminist NGO and for gender-equality programs more generally (Agustin, 2012).

^3. Publicly available documents were accessed from the EWL site and obtained from the secretariat. Internal documents were supplied by the secretariat and two national members. Documents were selected that indicated alliance or evidence where the EWL used other intergovernmental venues or coalition spaces to advocate on specific issues including equality mainstreaming and anti-discrimination, VAW, and budgetary processes

^4. A move away from hard law approaches that encouraged harmonization of policies to a soft law approach based on self-regulation that gave member states more freedom to implement policies as they see fit has had significant implications for activists interested in the potential of EU law to force change in member states.

^5. Other elements of EU soft law on gender equality include an EU Strategy for Equality between Women and Men 2010–2015, EU Women's Charter launched in March 2010, and a Pact for Gender Equality 2011–2020. All documents are absent of any commitment to introduce new legislation or measures binding on member states.

^6. The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU became legally binding across the EU with the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009, and it compels the EU institutions to respect the rights enshrined in the Charter but only applies to EU countries when they implement the EU law. The most direct gender impact of the Charter is in its article 23 that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender and supports the right to equal treatment.

^7. See http://www.womenlobby.org/about-us/how-we-work/budget/article/our-budget-2011?lang=en

^8. See http://www.womenlobby.org/spip.php?page = recherche&lang = en&recherche = crisis (accessed 13 March 2013).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pauline Cullen

Pauline Cullen, Ph.D., is Lecturer of Sociology and Politics at Maynooth University, National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Her current research explores the relevance of European Union strategies for civil society organizations and dynamics of coalition and conflict between civil society actors and organizations working on gender equality and social justice agendas.