This paper seeks to explore the complex relationships between EU gender policies and its emergent supranational gender regime on one hand, and developments of gender policies in „Eastern Europe“ on the other hand; Europe and Eastern Europe are here understood as contested terms that are continuously under construction and have shifting meanings. About ten years after eastern enlargement, gender equality policies have slowed down, and the transposition of the given equality directives on the national level is often protracted or skewed, as the comprehensive transposition and compliance literature has shown. However, if distinction from countries such as Russia is at stake, gender equality moves into the heart of European identity discourses.
In this paper, we shortly assess the impacts of EU gender policies in the region so far, starting with Eastern member states. We ask if certain features in these countries in fact contribute to the current standstill of EU gender policies. As new material and discursive boundaries have been established in the wake of EU enlargement, i. e. between member and non-member states, and as the EU gender regime forms a reference point for policy makers and civil society in Eastern Europe, we then explore more indirect influences and impacts of EU gender policies and laws namely in non-member states: these range from “autonomous adoption” via policy learning to affirmative or critical framing of the EU equality discourse by social movements and civil society actors. Hypotheses to explain this state of affairs are discussed in the conclusion.
