Briefing Political Trends& Dynamics Gender Politics in Southeast Europe December 2017| January 2018

Political Trends& Dynamics in Southeast Europe A FES DIALOGUE SOUTHEAST EUROPE PROJECT 2016–2018 Peace and stability initiatives represent a decades-long cornerstone of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s work in southeastern Europe. Recent events have only reaffirmed the centrality of Southeast European stability with in the broader continental security paradigm. Both democratization and socio-economic justice are intrinsic aspects of a larger progressive peace policy in the region, but so too are consistent threat assessments and ef forts to prevent conflict before it erupts. Dialogue SOE aims to broaden the discourse on peace and stability in southeastern Europe and to counter the securitization of prevalent narratives by providing regular analysis that involves a comprehensive understanding of human security, including structural sources of conflict. The briefings cover fourteen countries in southeastern Europe: the seven post-Yugoslav countries and Albania, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania, and Moldova.

Political Trends& Dynamics in Southeast Europe Editorial Jasmin Mujanović& Alida Vračić 2017 was a major year in the advancement of women’s issues and women’s causes, indeed, one of the most significant in decades. The#MeToo campaign, and the campaigns which preceded it, cast into sharp relief the endemic culture of sexual assault and abuse that permeates much of the professional world. And while the focus was primarily on Hollywood and the media and entertainment sector, con ditions are, if anything worse, for working women outside the limelight. The situation in southeastern Europe then is perhaps still worse. The pay gap between men and women in the region is pronounced, and arguably worse than the spotty official data suggests, there are few meaningful legal protections against harassment and assault, sexual violence and domestic abuse rates are on the increase, and women are chronically underrepresented in virtually all facets of public life, in cluding in the region’s EU member states. It did not used to be this way. After the end of World War II, southeast European states and the rest of the continent were in relatively similar positions, with women making their first, contested steps into political and social life as autonomous citizens on the back of dramatic post-war social reorganizing. In much of Europe women had only recently gained the vote, and legal frameworks for the recognition of their full civic and human rights were only just emerging. And in southeast Europe itself during the socialist period significant macro-economic strides were made in women’s standing in society, albeit within the context of an otherwise authoritarian regime. Indeed, in comparison to the contemporary post-Cold War moment, the socialist period was a halcyon age for the region. Since then however, and in particular since the 1990s in the case of the Western Bal kans, the situation has bifurcated: women have continued to make major strides in western Europe, while in southeastern Europe(and eastern Europe more broadly), their overall social position has stag nated and even regressed. Why has this happened and, perhaps more importantly, what have been women’s response to these changing socio-economic and socio-political tides? Ironically, it has been through far-right and centerright parties that women have most prominently reemerged in political life in the region as in much of Europe. Witness only rise of figures like Pia Kjærsgaard of the Danish Peoples’ Party, Siv Jensen of the Norwegian Progress Party, Marine Le Pen of the French Front National, Frauke Petri of the German Al ternative für Deutschland, along with comparatively moderate figures like Croatia’s Kolinda GrabarKitarovic and Serbia’s Ana Brnabic. But whereas in the 1960s and 1970s the talk was of“liberation”, the rhetoric of right-wing politicians today stresses“traditional values” and the“traditional family.” In other words, individual female leaders have themselves become implicated in the decline in women’s visibility and leadership in public affairs. But how much power do these right-oriented women actually have, especially within their own con servative and far-right movements? In this issue we take a closer look at the political equality, economic equality, and social equality of women in southeastern Europe. We discuss the question of real power and decision making processes and how women feature therein, the state of women’s rights in the re gion, and the linkages between the Euro-Atlantic order and gender politics. Moreover, we have asked our contributors specifically to reflect on whether(and to what degree) conditions in the region have changed in the past decade and how the process of EU accession, in particular, has influenced gender equality in the region – and what is required still for full gender equality in the EU and its neighbor hood? 3

Gender Equality on the Left Zita Gurmai Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung When I was in Croatia last summer, I learned about a small region named Konavle, where a group of women preserve and practice traditional embroidery and silk production. After being driven almost to extinction during the war, the silkworm was brought back to the village 18 years ago. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of a small number of local women, the tradition stays in the collective mem ory and can be passed on to the next generation. By developing a small business and entrepreneurial skills, the women found a way to empower themselves. What I learned from this experience is to look back at my political career and to remind myself why I decided to go into politics. These women from Konavle embodied everything I believe in: being active for your community’s needs, ensuring and sus taining a fair life with equal opportunities for this generation and the next. It also reflected to what I dedicated my professional life to: social democracy and empowering women. Changing things for the better takes time, and twenty years ago it was hard to imagine that PES Wom en would transform from a platform of exchange within the Party of European Socialists to an active, outward-looking women’s movement, with real political influence on the European scene. Increasing the number of women in political and public positions is important and women seem to have more de cision-making power and influence than ever before. Progress is being made even in the most conserv ative societies. Nevertheless, as of June 2016, only 22.8 per cent of all national parliamentarians were women, a slow increase from 11.3 per cent in 1995, when the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Ac tion was adopted. Globally, there are 38 countries in which women account for less than 10 per cent of parliamentarians in single or lower houses, including 4 chambers with no women at all. In my country Hungary for example, only 20 out of 199 MPs are women, and there is no single woman holding a posi tion in the current government. As these numbers reflect, there is a long way to go to achieve sustain able gender equality. But even if we have women in different political control levels, does that automatically imply that gen der equality and women’s rights are promoted and defended, or that women have real power to im prove the situation and roles that women play? This is one of the most pressing questions that we are working on in PES Women, and it was also the main topic of our Annual Conference in Lisbon last November. Under the slogan“From gaining to own ing power” we invited politicians, trade unionists, and civil society organisations to debate and explore how women can obtain true empowerment and how this can be translated into political activism. The fact is that we see women mobilizing, especially in the streets and on social media; the#metoo cam paign against sexual harassment has proven that we do not have to stay silent. But it is important to look beneath the surface of such a phenomenon and to ask ourselves how this increasing mobilisation of women can be translated into political engagement. The movement cannot stop with outrage to wards perpetrators; we need to move it forward into a much more far-reaching campaign for gender equality, to fight the way the world is structurally engineered against women. We need to build an eq uitable system in which women have the power to lead fulfilling lives. After all, gender-based violence, sexism, and sexual misbehaviour are a consequence of an unequal society and unequal power struc tures. To change this, we need to break down stereotypes, change mentalities, and implement policies that improve the lives of women, such as the‘European Council Convention on preventing and com bating violence against women and domestic violence’, for whose ratification in all EU Member States we have been calling since 2011. This is one of the reasons why it is so important not only to engage more women in politics, especially progressive ones, but also to convince political parties, that are usually still dominated by white mid dle-aged men, to put gender equality at the heart of their political programs. Given austerity politics and the enduring rise of extremist and conservative forces throughout Europe and beyond, advances in women’s rights are stagnating and in many cases even compromised. When we look at the current elec 4

Political Trends& Dynamics in Southeast Europe tion results throughout Europe, a worrying picture emerges. Particularly in South East European coun tries like my own, we see that authoritarian parties are still preventing regime change, and weak insti tutions and a fragile civil society are obstacles to democratization and women’s empowerment. The young generation is heavily affected by the aftermath of the financial crisis, by structural changes in the labour market and by ongoing demographic deviations, which put them at huge disadvantage. In addition to that, a lot of people, young and old, are leaving our political parties. They are looking for new political options and identities, which they seem not to find with the Social Democratic Parties of their respective country, because they are seen as outdated, distant from the people, institutionalized and became more brand names than real action takers. While trust is lost on one side, political power is gained by populist and far-right parties on the other side, and this is putting social democracy at risk. The problem here at stake is that less democracy means less gender equality and vice versa. In a huge part of the region, we witness a retraditionalization of gender roles, which comes hand in hand with this negative trend. The recent attacks on sexual and reproductive health and rights for women and on LGBTI-rights are only one visible consequence. In order to overcome this backlash, we need to find a renewed strategy as a political movement as a whole, but we also need to get away from the critical mass approach in favour of a new narrative for gender parity in political life, where equal representation of women and men is seen and treated as a precondition for political institutions. But until this becomes reality, we must support female leadership to meet women’s interest and needs. Women in powerful positions are key factor to ensuring that im provements occur and that they‘trickle down’ to positively impact the lives of citizens and communi ties. We believe that promoting women’s active citizenship, voice and leadership has the potential to make societies more vibrant and its institutions more resilient and responsive. What we need to achieve in addition to women’s representation is a shift from formal to actual empowerment. Because we still witness that real power is hard to achieve for different reasons including the nature of portfolios held by women and their responsibilities at the work-place, the lack of budget or visibility they get, or their double burden as principal carers and professionals. On top of that, women are discouraged from seek ing political office by discriminatory attitudes and practices, including stereotyping through the media. But that is the reason why feminist governments and women’s organisations in political parties will not become obsolete in the near future. They matter in particular as long as they only serve as a decorative figurehead to have women’s issues covered in political programmes and are not considered as an inte grated part of the parties’ political identities. There must occur a shift of paradigm to fully implement party structures and procedures that remove all barriers for the participation of women, to develop ini tiatives that allow women to participate fully in all internal policy-making structures and electoral pro cesses and specially to take measures to ensure that women can participate in the leadership of political parties on an equal basis with men. In my fourteen-year mandate as PES Women President, I have learned that achievements in gender equality are only possible with political will, financial means, intersectionality, intergenerational dia logue, and joint efforts of women and men. With the upcoming European elections in 2019, we have a new chance to advance women’s political representation. We in PES Women, our partners and all the other strong women who fight their daily battles in the shark tank of local, national and European pol itics will make social justice as well as true and equal decision-making power of women an utmost pri ority. 5

Gender Rights at the Periphery Mija Javornik Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung The EU has arguably taken some solid strides towards gender equality, though inequality remains per nicious in several crucial areas. The share of women in the European Parliament has grown from 16 per cent in 1979 to 37 per cent today. Although the differences between countries are large, ranging from 9 per cent in Lithuania to 55 per cent in Ireland, the growth is impressive. 1 However, the European In stitute for Gender Equality(EIGE) 2017 Gender Equality Index shows that progress comes at a very slow pace. The overall EU’s score on gender equality is now 66.2 out of 100(just four points higher than ten years ago), but levels of inequality differ widely across Member States. In the EU’s periphery, the situation is equally varied – with positive movement in some areas and stagnation in others. In SEE, women’s representation in political decision-making Opinion is, on average, positive. If in 1990 women on average held Dying left wing parties or, more frequent around 7 per cent of seats, they hold 27 per cent seats now. ly, neoliberal or nationalistic parties calling Croatia and Slovenia had, and Serbia has their first female themselves socialists/ social democrats no Prime Ministers; Kosovo had and Croatia has a female presi longer promote coherent gender equality dent; Slovenia has parity in its cabinet; several countries in policies; they have a different public agen the region have female financial, defense, interior, and for da. When dealing with gender issues, it eign affairs ministers. That notwithstanding, the trends are happens for external reasons, as fulfilling mixed. New elections do not always bring more women to conditions for European Union accession real power positions, or they bring them to the highest pow or avoiding criticism. However, something er positions, only to show that they do not even try to enit is clear; analysing concrete economic gage in transformative politics. data, we notice increasing social inequal ities, women overrepresentation among At the same time the main challenges of gender inequality the poorer strata of the population and persist: feminized poverty, growing female overrepresenta wide structural wage gaps preserved. In tion in the precariat and the share of unpaid care work; wide the society we live in, where power and gender pay and pension gaps; uneven progress on tack wealth are so strongly connected, this realling harassment and violence, ensuring access to education, ity makes us understanding that the pres health, sexual and reproductive rights, and paid maternal ence of a few women in higher level posi and family leave. Open attacks on a secular state, on“gen tions could be misleading; we are wrong der ideology”, freedom of choice, and feminism in general labelling it as a progress in gender equal exist not only in the realm of social media, but in the parlia ity, because it isn’t! Progress is needed and mentary politics and in mainstream media and public spaces. expected but it has not yet arrived and it will not arrive without a general struggle Since the collapse of state socialism and dismembering of for changing legal rules, institutions, bethe former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, women in post-conflict haviors, and mentalities. societies have created a specific path to more equal partici pation of women in political decision-making. Mixed meth ods such as regional cooperation through Stability Pact GenGabriela Cretu MP, Romania, Social Democratic Party der Task Force, cross-cutting national coalitions, sandwich strategies, and repeated parallel electoral campaigns were used. The enactment of firm gender quotas in BiH, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, and(though weaker) Croatia followed. A paradox was cre ated: women in political parties did not invent or start this process, they merely joined it. Women in socio-democratic parties began create women’s party organizations, tried to introduce quo tas for party organs, and made their party congresses accept elementary programmatic statements on gender equality, as well as include at least one gender equality issue in the party electoral promises. This grew to nearly all parliamentary parties, but in the long-term, not much changed – the essential 1 Men and women distribution, European Parliament, Results of the 2014 European Elections. 6

Political Trends& Dynamics in Southeast Europe imbalance of power remained due to low female party membership and‘old boys’ networks’. Women’s success in the struggle for more equal representation, for legislation on gender equality or for better laws on violence against women, did not come from their power within their parties, but rather from specific broader issue coalitions, which had the support of society and of external international actors before elections and thus forced parties to deliver better legal frameworks. Some parties even changed their attitude – when this did not cost them much in the party itself or in the state budget when they were in power. The beauty and the curse of the issue coalitions is that they operate very effectively and have influence over society, political parties, governments, and parliaments – but only till they achieve their clearly set goal. For instance: when quotas are enacted, the coalition made to achieve them deactivates. It reap pears, in the best of cases, when its achievement is attacked, as in Serbia, where the revived coalition for quotas succeeded and in BiH and Croatia, where the women quota coalitions failed – the changes, which were enacted de facto, made the Croat and Bosnian quotas ineffective. This means that these is sue coalitions are not a permanent powerhouse for any women’s rights activists, and especially not for women’s rights activists from political parties. The political landscape in the SEE has dramatically changed since the global economic and political cri ses in 2007/8. A more multipolar world has led to competing geopolitical interests in the region. Tra ditional parties of the moderate centre, including people’s parties and social-democratic parties, lost their stabilising position in the metropoles of Europe. A shift towards the far right in the US and Britain accompany the radicalization of the political mainstream in the EU. For women, the move to the right does not bode well. The EU Commission reduced its gender equality strategy to a bureaucratic paper. Little by little, the prospect of EU accession is losing its appeal in the SEE. Donors with progressive agen das are moving out of the region, making the creation and functioning of specific women’s issue coali tions beyond violence and women’s entrepreneurship practically impossible. It seems that the ball is in the court of the women in moderate political parties. Have they become strong enough to persuade their male party leaderships that the way to renew lost trust of the voters is through serious work for real equality between men and women? In the USA, the women’s movement seems to be vocal enough, while things seem much bleaker in the EU. They appear even worse on the periphery, at least when it comes to institutionalized politics. A few of the weakened social-democrat parties in the SEE are showing signs of becoming serious with regard to gender equality issues, but only time will show if this is not too little, too late. Progressive responses should not be opportunistic, cater ing to public opinion polls. The responses need to be bold, assume leadership, and pledge commitment with gender differentiated approaches. A broader political project is needed – a project of more soli darity in more equal and more inclusive societies. 7

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung The Equality Paradigm Exposed: Why Emancipatory Politics Came Under Fire and What We Can Do About It 1 Eszter Kováts When we are faced with fierce opposition to what the Right presents as the threat of“gender ideol ogy” or“cultural Marxism” or“the dictatorship of political correctness”, it is not enough to say they misunderstand gender equality. It is not even enough to say that this homogenizing discourse, con sciously ignoring debates within and among feminist and LGBT activism and academia, is a mere po litical mobilization strategy and a pretext for being able to reject progressive legislation(e. g. ratifying the Istanbul Convention). While all this is partly true, this does not account for the full scope of the phenomenon: we need to look beyond what is attacked at the surface in order to understand what is at stake. “If gender quota is necessary for party lists, what if I identify as a woman, can I run for a woman’s place then? And what happens if I identify as one of those other genders?” This question was posed to me by a male right-wing politician recently. With this, we embarked on one of the favourite topics of the Right when it comes to women’s rights and gender equality. The contra diction presented by the politician points to the fact that the gender definition of the policy of quota differs from the one which includes trans and genderqueer people’s political claims. And this is just one of the issues which makes it hard to fully grasp opposition to gender equality politics in many countries. Equality Politics Under Fire In recent years, numerous countries across the globe have witnessed the emergence of powerful social movements mobilizing against an enemy known as‘gender ideology’, and‘cultural Marxism’, in much of the Western world,‘Gayropa’ in post-Soviet countries or‘political correctness’ in the American con text. These movements have successfully mobilized people against various human rights and equality is sues such as women’s reproductive rights, LGBT issues, gender equality policies and gender mainstream ing, sexual education, gender studies as an academic field, and political correctness. Because of the centrality of the concepts of gender and equality to these illiberal movements pushing for a paradigm shift, many political commentators treated them as a problem in itself; understanding such rhetoric as a backlash against emancipatory politics, a mobilization of fundamentalists against the achievements of feminism and sexual minority rights. However, the situation seems more complicated than this. In what follows I will list some(but certainly not all) factors which could contribute to the op position to the equality paradigm. Different Gender Definitions‘Out There’ The simultaneity of the movements, the different triggers in countries that differ with respect to po litical landscape as well as gender and LGBT policies indicates that, rather than dealing with isolat ed cases, we are witnessing a transnational phenomenon. There is a growing scholarship on these movements and two of the main scholars of the field, Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte remind us that“‘gender ideology’ does not designate gender studies, but is a term initially created to oppose women’s and LGBT rights activism as well as the scholarship deconstructing essentialist and natural istic assumptions about gender and sexuality(…) it regards gender as the ideological matrix of a set 1 The parts Equality politics under fire and Gender as symbolic glue of this article are quotes from a piece written with Andrea Pető and Weronika Grzebalska. The part on the limits of the human rights paradigm is an edited quote from the author’s Preface to“The Future of the European Union – Feminist Perspectives from East-Central Europe”; http://fesbp.hu/common/pdf/The_Future_of_the_EU.pdf. 8

Political Trends& Dynamics in Southeast Europe of abhorred ethical and social reforms, namely sexual and reproductive rights, same-sex marriage and adoption, new reproductive technologies, sex education, gender mainstreaming, protection against gender violence and others.” 2 The controversy around gender is even more complicated as there are different gender definitions in use in policy-making and in social justice activism, born in different times and on different ideo logical base, partly disconnected from debates within gender studies, and partly contradicting each other. First, in the English speaking context gender became widely a substitute of biological sex(e.g. in the cases when we speak about gender quotas or gender pay gap, what is meant is male-female ratio). Sec ond, it came to mean women, e. g. gender analysis in policy-making is often used to describe how this or that measure would affect women(and less, as intended, gender relations). Third, it is an analytical category to describe the social quality of distinctions based on sex, the power structures in a given soci ety between men and women, and the roles, possibilities and constraints in society, assigned on being born male or female(e. g. if we speak about gender-based violence, it refers to the gendered nature of a specific type of violence, rooted in the prevailing patriarchal structure of our societies). Fourth, many use it in the trans and genderqueer activism to mean gender identity 3 (a person’s felt sense of identity and expression, meaning identifying or not with being born male or female). It is unsurprising that people not acquainted with social justice activism and gender policy, not to men tion with abstract debates in gender studies, cannot make a sense of‘what gender really is’. This ambi guity makes the term vulnerable to who are less interested in disentangling complexities and more in creating a homogeneous other in the groups of feminists, LGBT activists, gender studies scholars, liber al, green, and left-wing politicians. Gender as Symbolic Glue “Gender ideology”,“cultural Marxism,” and“political correctness” have come to signify everything that is perceived as wrong with the current state of politics. In order to understand this phenomenon, and to highlight the crucial role played by gender politics in the current paradigm change, Weronika Grzebalska, Andrea Pető and myself have introduced the notion of gender as‘symbolic glue’ 4 : “Firstly, in constructing a dynamic within which the notion of‘gender’ is perceived as a threatening concept the right has united separate contested issues attributed to the progressive agenda under one umbrella term.‘Gender ideology’ has come to signify the failure of democratic representation, and op position to this ideology has become a means of rejecting different facets of the current socioeconomic order, from the prioritization of identity politics over material issues, and the weakening of people’s so cial, cultural and political security 5 , to the detachment of social and political elites and the influence of transnational institutions and the global economy on nation states. Secondly, the demonization of‘gender ideology’ has become a key rhetorical tool in the construction of a new conception of‘common sense’ for a wide audience; a form of consensus about what is normal and legitimate. It is important to note that social mobilization which is based on an opposition to‘gen der ideology’ and political correctness does not just demonize the worldview of their adversaries, and reject the human rights paradigm which has long been the object of relative consensus in Europe and North America. Instead, they offer a liveable and viable alternative centred on family, nation, religious 2 Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte, Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe. Mobilizing against Equality(Rowman& Littlefield: London& New York, 2017) p. 5. 3 https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-that-gender-is-a-spectrum-is-a-new-gender-prison. 4 http://politicalcritique.org/long-read/2017/gender-as-symbolic-glue-how-gender-became-an-umbrella-term-for-the-rejection-of-theneoliberal-order/. 5 http://visegradinsight.eu/why-the-war-on-gender-ideology-matters-and-not-just-to-feminists/. 9

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung values and freedom of speech, one which is attractive because it rests on a positive identification of an individual’s own choice, and one that promises a safe and secure community as a remedy to individual ism and atomization. Thirdly, opposition to‘gender politics’ and‘cultural Marxism’ has also allowed the Right to create broad alliances and unite various actors that have not, necessarily, been eager to cooperate in the past: dif ferent Christian Churches, orthodox Jews, fundamentalist Muslims, mainstream conservatives, far right parties, fundamentalist groups and in some countries even football hooligans.” 6 No Linear Liberal Progress The extent to which liberal ideas have become entrenched in the value-laden notion of linear progress is especially problematic today, when the lived experience of precariousness and insecurity continue to contradict this promise. This position also carries the risk of the binary classification of people as being on the right or wrong side of history, creating false dichotomies 7 (either for or against equality). Often it is presented as if tolerance and acceptance(which have recently come to mean the same thing) would be a spectrum – as if one could draw a line of progress, leading from sheer homophobia/misogyny to wards mature attitudes of acknowledging equality. This idea completely lacks a reflection on the material dimensions of inequalities as well as on the em beddedness of the terms and goals of the equality paradigm in the global power order. In case of EastCentral Europe one can for instance mention the import of activism from the core countries in the field of human rights after the regime change and how it is articulated today in so-called progressive activ ism 8 . Dennis Altman and Jonathan Symons remind us that“gay liberation will not follow a predeter mined trajectory in which each country has a‘Stonewall moment’, creates gay districts and eventually legalizes gay marriage.” 9 Therefore the idea of a necessary liberal progress should be used very care fully if at all. Not only the dichotomy of progressives vs. conservatives(based on this idea of liberal pro gress) is false but it has been exploited by the Right 10 more successfully than by so-called progressive actors. Inflation of Terms and the Limits of the Human Rights Paradigm In the last years, the term populism has gained enormously in popularity beyond the academic litera ture, and this has intensified even more since the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election. There is vir tually not a politician who has not been labelled populist at one time, because most people use the term to defame a political opponent. Chantal Mouffe calls this phenomenon“anti-populist hysteria” 11 . This tendency to dismiss views deviating from the supposed/desired liberal consensus as populist is simi lar to the overuse of the terms misogynistic, homophobic, racist and so on, in the name of human rights. It is all the more complicated as right-wing actors in many countries use women’s rights and gay rights as a weapon against migrants and refugees(Jasbir Puar’s concept of homonationalism, and Sara Farris’ concept of femonationalism). The human rights consensus which formed the basis of the post-WWII order in the West, is another no tion questioned by the forces mobilizing against“gender ideology”. The respect of human rights of each human being should be beyond question, and in times of increasing attacks this must be always 6 Weronika Grzebalska, Eszter Kováts, and Andrea Pető, Gender as symbolic glue: how’gender’ became an umbrella term for the rejection of the(neo)liberal order(2017); http://politicalcritique.org/long-read/2017/gender-as-symbolic-glue-how-gender-became-anumbrella-term-for-the-rejection-of-the-neoliberal-order/. 7 http://politicalcritique.org/cee/hungary/2016/culture-wars-and-reality-questions-on-demographic-policy/. 8 https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/orsolya-bajusz-dalma-fer/virtue-signalling-as-route-to-social-status-instances-fr. 9 Dennis Altman and Jonathan Symons, Queer Wars. The New Global Polarization over Gay Rights(Polity Press: Cambridge, 2017), p. 134. 10 https://theconversation.com/how-hungary-and-poland-have-silenced-women-and-stifled-human-rights-66743. 11 https://www.opendemocracy.net/democraciaabierta/chantal-mouffe/populist-challenge. 10

Political Trends& Dynamics in Southeast Europe emphasized. Still, we have to keep in mind the challenge posed by the fact what the human rights par adigm is in package with. The paradigm of human rights focuses on individual rights and views the economic order as an inde pendent social sub-system. It also disconnects the persisting privileges of men against women from its political-economical embeddedness. That is, how the hierarchical relations between men and women are reproduced in today’s societies, e. g. reproductive work being an invisible(and invisibilized) pre condition of so-called productive work(work done at the labour market). Also, it obfuscates the fact that there may be contradictions among various human rights claims(for example between gay rights advocates and women’s organisations concerning surrogacy). Thirdly: there are more and more things brought under the umbrella of human rights— and as soon as it happens, the given phenomenon is morally unquestionable. That is how, concerning the topic of prostitution— which has been subject to debate among feminists up to this day— the representatives of the sex work approach(who see the problem in stigmatization) refer to human rights and try to present the standpoint that sees prostitu tion as the exploitation of women’s bodies and therefore a phenomenon to be eliminated as illegiti mate and exclusionary. In many countries, activists that interpret gender as an inner essence see the recognition of their gender identity(independently of embodiment, identifying as a man, or a woman or non-binary) as a human right, hence indisputable. Human Dignity in Material Terms Culturalising explanations about the popularity of this or that right-wing party, candidate or move ment among people(e. g. saying that those who favour them would hold traditionalist views about men and women) overlook the complexity behind such sympathies. I listed some of them above. The importance of the material aspect can be further exemplified by the popularity of the Polish Law and Justice party among women, which opposes reproductive rights but it is the first Polish political party since 1989 to significantly expand the welfare state and the alleviation of poverty is already measur able, following its generous family policy. As sociologist Weronika Grzebalska puts it 12 :“It is the only party that valorizes care work; respect for motherhood, even rhetorically, is more than what the la bor market frequently offers.” The Right recognizes and explores failures of the so-called progressive actors in the field of global and class inequalities. Therefore it is not enough to plea for more recog nition of women’s human rights, but other crucial questions need to be asked and answered: what is the definition of work and what should it be? How much worth is care in our society(beyond division of labour within the family)? What is the relation of productive work to care(beyond work-life balance)? What is the global economic order, which contributes to the reproduction of unequal attitudes and time use patterns? Conclusion These right-wing movements are not necessarily anti-feminist and homophobic per se, even though they undoubtedly fight the terms in which equality is defined by so-called progressive actors: anti-dis crimination language, human rights paradigm, statistical equality and individualizing identity politics. All these described processes need to be looked at more thoroughly. Reflection on“how we got here” and on the share of responsibility of the actors invested in human rights and social justice is not capit ulation to the Right. It is the prerequisite to be able to provide better answers to the crises uncovered and the weaknesses exposed. 12 http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/memory-keepers. 11

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung POLITICAL TRENDS& THE AIM OF THIS SECTION IS TO BROADEN THE DISCOURSE ON PEACE AND STABILITY IN SOUTHEAST EUROPE AND TO PROVIDE ANALYSIS THAT INVOLVES A COMPREHENSIVE UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN SECURITY, INCLUDING STRUCTURAL SOURCES OF CONFLICT. THE BRIEFINGS COVER FOURTEEN COUNTRIES IN SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE: THE SEVEN POST-YUGOSLAV COUNTRIES AND ALBANIA, GREECE, TURKEY, CYPRUS, BULGARIA, ROMANIA, AND MOLDOVA. DYNAMICS OVERVIEW

KOSOVO’S GHOSTS The new year has not made the best of starts. No sooner had the dual Christmas(and in some parts dual New Year’s Eve) celebrations come to a close than much of the region woke up on Jan uary 16 to news of a political assassination. In the morning hours of that day, unknown assas sins fired several shots at Oliver Ivanovic, a mod erate Kosovo Serb politician from the town of Mitrovica in north Kosovo, outside of his politi cal party’s offices. Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic called the murder a terrorist act. Yet to many the murder seemed more like a political assassination, gen erating a nasty sense of déjà vu. South-East Eu rope – Kosovo and Serbia in particular – have no shortage of political assassinations in the recent (or indeed more distant) past. However, most observers and ordinary citizens had thought that such ways of settling political scores in the region were, indeed, firmly a thing of the past. The assassination of Ivanovic has shaken this be lief, which is perhaps what makes it doubly dis turbing. portraying the murder as ethnically motivated, politicians and observers – including other local Kosovo Serb politicians – seemed to suggest that the assassination was more likely to have been ordered by powerful criminal circles with links to politics from within northern Kosovo. Exactly how far-reaching the consequences of this political murder will be remains to be seen. For the time being, Belgrade has put the EU-me diated dialogue with Pristina on hold. Some Ser bian officials have vowed that the dialogue will not be resumed until Ivanovic’s murderers are found. In reality, there seems little likelihood of this, as Ivanovic’s killers may well not be found any time soon, while the international commu nity seems in no mood to allow an indefinite suspension of negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia. A woman lights a candle where Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic was killed in northern town of Mitrovica, Kosovo People gather at the office, where Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic was killed, in northern town of Mitrovica, Kosovo Who Ivanovic’s assassins might be has still not been revealed. The Kosovar and Serbian law en forcement agencies have launched their own investigations and Kosovo’s Prime Minister Ra mush Haradinaj even floated the idea of call ing in the FBI. Yet despite this, many observers remain sceptical that the assassins will ever be identified. While some in Serbia were quick in Nor was this the only turbulent development facing Kosovo over the holiday period. With the long-awaited Hague-based Specialist Chambers for trying crimes committed by the Kosovo Lib eration Army(KLA) seemingly set to issue its first indictments in the very near future, a motion was submitted to the Kosovo Assembly signed by 43(out of 120) of its members calling for the legislation which allows the Court to operate to be revoked. This sudden turn of events gener ated sharp rebukes from the international com munity, which warned of grave consequences if Kosovo’s Assembly went down this path. Anoth er attempt to have the relevant laws revoked failed on January 17. 13

However, attempts to abolish the legislation permitting the Court’s work have still not gone away. Moreover, tensions remain high in Koso vo as the first indictments are anxiously awaited. Daut Haradinaj, a former KLA fighter and broth er of Kosovo’s PM Ramush Haradinaj warned of a backlash from KLA veterans against any arrests related to the Court’s future indictments. ELECTIONS Both sides of the divided island of Cyprus saw elections in January. On 7 th January, Turkishdominated norther Cyprus held Parliamentary elections in which the right-wing National Unity Party emerged victorious with 21 seats and is likely to lead a renewed coalition of parties from the right of the political spectrum. Meanwhile, Cypriot voters in the internationally-recognized Republic of Cyprus went to the polls at the end of January to elect a new president. Incumbent Nicos Anastasiades emerged as the winner of the first round, gaining 35 per cent of the votes cast but failing to reach the 50 per cent thresh old necessary to be elected in the first round. He will now enter a second round run-off with the runner up of the first round, Stavros Malas, an independent backed by the leftist AKEL party. The election, held on 28 th January, was marked by increased voter abstention – although still high, the 72 per cent turnout was still ten points lower than that in 2018. Nevertheless, the fact that both candidates who will be going into the second round favour a continuation of recent efforts to reunite the divided island is seen as an encouraging sign by most observers. On January 19, the Speaker of the Montene grin Parliament, Ivan Brajovic, set the date of his country’s presidential elections for April 15, 2018. Perhaps more interesting than this is the intense speculation in Montenegro that the country’s veteran leader Milo Djukanovic may come out of his formal retirement to run for president yet again. Bosnia, too, is gearing up for national elections, expected in October. In most countries, an elec tion that was ten months away would perhaps not merit much attention at the beginning of the year, yet in Bosnia the long campaign ahead of each election begins long before election day itself. Yet without amendments to the election law itself, it remains uncertain whether the House of Peoples, the upper chamber of Bosnia’s centrallevel Parliament as well as a chamber of the Fed eration entity’s Parliament, can be constituted. After much speculation regarding whether Ser bia would go to another Parliamentary election in the spring of 2018, the ruling Serbian Progres sive Party(SNS) has decided against this idea. However, the election date has been set for the City of Belgrade’s local government, with March 4 chosen. The election is seen as a key test of the support for the ruling SNS in the country’s capital, with many observers arguing that the opposition has a strong chance of challenging – perhaps even unseating – the ruling party. The conduct of the election will be another key element to watch – local elections held on Decem ber 24 in five local municipalities were marred by incidents of violence and intimidation direct ed at opposition activists. GOVERNMENT INSTABILITY Romania faced yet another government crisis over the last month. Having dismissed their own Prime Minister – Sorin Grindeanu – in June 2017, the ruling Social Democrats forced the resigna tion of his replacement, Mihai Tudose, on Jan uary 15. Yet again, the reason for the removal of the Prime Minister were disagreements be tween party leader Liviu Dragnea and Tudose over the(re)composition of the government. As in the past, Dragnea prevailed. Romania now appears set to get its first female Prime Minis ter – on January 17, Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis accepted the nomination of Viorica Dancila, a Social Democrat MEP, for the post of Prime Minister by her party. A new government is expected to be installed in Bucharest by the beginning of February. Neighbouring Moldova also saw a government reshuffle in December 2017, with seven new members being added and only four ministers keeping their posts. Yet unlike in Romania, the changes are not the result of any political crisis, but the seeming desire of the ruling Democratic Party of Moldova to improve its image ahead of Parliamentary elections due at the end of 2018, as well as in the eyes of Brussels. 14 14

EU In January, Bulgaria kicked off its six month Pres idency of the Council of the European Union. The country’s government had hoped to use the Bulgarian Presidency to promote Bulgaria and improve the country’s negative image. While Bulgaria has certainly come into the spotlight, this has not helped to improve the country’s im age. On the contrary, European media have yet again placed the spotlight on the Balkan coun try’s problems with corruption, organized crime and poverty. Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borisov speaks during the ceremony as part of the Bulgarian presidency of the Council of the EU Among other things, Bulgaria hopes to champi on the cause of Western Balkan EU enlargement during its six month Presidency. Quite whether Bulgaria is the best advocate for EU hopefuls in the Western Balkans is dubious at best. Howev er, in February, the European Commission is due to unveil a new enlargement strategy focused on Montenegro and Serbia, the two current front runners, which, according to leaked information, seems set to float 2025 as a potential moment for the accession of these two coun tries. Doubtless, the new strategy will also list all the daunting work which they will need to com plete by then in order to be ready to join. On February 6, the European Commission launched its new enlargement strategy, primar ily aimed at the countries of the Western Bal kans. Having been on the margins of the Com Opinion Instead of using its first EU Presidency to direct the public discourse towards future-relevant issues such as youth and digitalization, public debate in Bulgaria is riddled with paranoid disputes on na tional identity, sexual mores, and the limits of tol erance. The bone of contention is the European Coun cil’s 2011 Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. Salient in Bulgaria, where a study by the Center for the Study of Democracy in 2014 found that a third of Bulgaria’s society is victim to domestic violence, particularly in the Roma population. Vice Prime Minister Karakachanov described the text of the Convention as“scandalous,” as promoting “homosexuality and transsexuality in schools,” with which international stakeholders want to“force” Bulgaria into introducing a third gender. The ratification of the Convention was meant to be prepared in the first cabinet session this year but was voted against by eight ruling coalition minis ters. Bulgaria’s Socialist Party, surprisingly, distanced itself from the Convention despite previously sup porting it, along with PES. This was followed by a campaign by far-right“Patri ots” with a strong media presence. They took issue with the term“gender” as a social construct instead of“sex” as the biological gender. To most Bulgar ians, gender as a social role sounds awkward in the best case and suspicious in the worst. This controversy has a firm hold over Bulgaria: 62 per cent of Bulgarians are against passing the Con vention. The struggle against domestic violence could be lost in political calculations. Meanwhile, neighbours are taking note. Croatia’s President Grabar-Kitarović, who advocated for the Conven tion, pleaded only to implement those aspects which would not cause“public controversy.” Dr. Helene Kortländer Director, FES Bulgaria missions long agenda over the last few years, enlargement appears to be coming back in from the cold. That, at least, is the message which the Commission is trying to send with the new en 15

Jean Claude Juncker, Boyko Borisov, Donald Tusk, Rumen Radev, Antonio Tajani and Tsveta Karayancheva attend the ceremony as part of the Bulgarian presidency of the Council of the EU largement strategy, which is both an attempt to breathe more life into the process, as well as boost the credibility of the promise of member ship for the Western Balkan countries. The new strategy correctly identifies the problems plagu ing the region and spells out what the countries of the region need to do in order to become members of the European club. In this sense, the new strategy is also a carefully calibrated attempt to dispel the idea that some countries might be let into the EU even if they do not meet the necessary criteria particularly if, like Serbia, they have a political bargaining chip up their sleeve(specifically, the Kosovo issue). Of course, this message is not intended just for Western Balkan ears but also those of the more enlarge ment-sceptic EU member states, who need con vincing that the Commission is still serious about demanding that future accession countries really do meet key standards such as those relating to rule of law and fighting corruption. DEMOCRACY AND MEDIA FREEDOM Across the region, news stories suggesting de terioration in democratic and media freedoms trickled in. A new report published by Freedom House – Freedom in the World in 2018 – did not carry much good news from South East Europe. The most dramatic change was visible in the case of Turkey, which finally slid into the‘not free’ category of countries. As the report notes, the country’s freedom score has been in free-fall since 2014, when President, Recep Tayyip Er dogan, began a campaign to impose personal ized control over the country’s political system. A further six countries in the region – Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova and Mon tenegro – all fall into the‘partly free’ category. Serbia, while still in the free category, was perceived to be on a downward trend. Other signs that the region was sliding in a more authoritarian direction abounded. Ahead of a visit by a delegation of European media or ganizations, Croatian journalists complained of pressures on independent media, as well as the independence of public broadcaster HRT. In late December, Montenegrin journalists and civil society activists took to the streets to protest growing political pressure on their country’s public broadcaster, RTCG. A trend of increasing attacks and pressure on investigative journalists was also noted in Bulgaria at the end of 2017. CORRUPTION V THE RULE OF LAW As ever, corruption and problems regarding the rule of law were present across the region during the turn of the year. Romania seemed to attract the greatest amount of attention on this front. In December, the country passed changes to the Criminal Code which were bitterly opposed by prosecutors, judges, legal experts and much of the public. Critics argued that the changes to the Criminal Code would all but shut down investigations related to organized crime and corruption. Amidst this, the country’s Judicial Inspectorate announced that it had launched a misconduct investigation into the country’s much-praised anti-corruption Chief Prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi. Meanwhile, a report published by the Council of Europe at the beginning of this year criticized the country’s lack of progress in fight ing corruption. Neighbouring Serbia also saw holiday-related corruption scandals, as media revealed the huge sums of money spent by the Belgrade City au thorities on Christmas decorations around the city. Perhaps most shocking was a contract for an 83,000 euros plastic Christmas tree, which 16 16

authorities later claimed to have cancelled. Yet more troubling were certain institutional chang es, real or expected. Investigative journalists from BIRN revealed that the newly-appointed head of the country’s Anti-Corruption Agency had been a donor and local election candidate of the ruling SNS in 2016, bringing his inde pendence into doubt. Meanwhile, with the gov ernment set to unveil proposed constitutional changes which, in theory, should help increase judicial independence, many judges and prose cutors expressed their fears that the proposals could be used to actually reduce judicial inde pendence. In Albania, the Independent Qualification Com mission – a body established in order to vet ap pointments within the judicial system as part of wider rule of law reforms – began its work in November. While hailed as a positive devel opment, media warned that the Commission’s work was shrouded in secrecy, something which could undermine trust in it. (PARLIAMENTARY) PROTESTS Parliamentary protests and boycotts appear to be becoming a fixture of Balkan politics in addi tion to all manner of routine civic protests. In Tirana, opposition MPs set off smoke bombs in Parliament in a failed attempt to block the election of a temporary Prosecutor-General in December. The Parliament was also the scene of scuffles between MPs from the ruling majority and the opposition. Outside Parliament, opposi tion demonstrators clashed with police. Next door, in Kosovo, a local court found four MPs from the Self-determination movement guilty of setting off tear gas in Kosovo’s Parlia ment during 2015. The MPs set off the tear gas in an attempt to block the passage of a contro versial border demarcation agreement between Kosovo and Montenegro. Given that the MPs re ceived conditional sentences, they will not be sent to prison, unless they commit the same act again over the next two years. Bucharest saw yet more protests by ordinary cit izens against corruption and weak rule of law. Amidst freezing temperatures, the latest pro test on January 20 attracted thousands of dem onstrators, many of whom had travelled from other parts of the country to attend. Protest demands were directed against the recent changes to the Criminal Code in particular. People participate in the Women’s March rally on January 20, 2018 in Athens, Greece Bulgarians also took to the streets over a num ber of issues in January. Indeed, the beginning of Bulgaria’s Presidency of the EU Council occurred amidst protests by numerous local groups, such as police unions, seeking to exploit Bulgaria’s mo ment in the international spotlight to draw at tention to their own causes and problems. Aside from socio-economic problems, green issues also sparked demonstrations, as thousands came out onto the streets of Sofia on January 4 to protest against a planned expansion of a ski resort in the Pirin National Park. In another corner of the country, demonstrators supporting the ski devel opment gathered at a counter-protest against what they called the‘green parasites’. Tensions in Turkish-run northern Cyprus remain elevated after pro-Erdogan nationalist demon strators attacked the offices of the Afrika news paper on 22 nd January. The newspaper had pub lished a front-page story critical of Turkey’s ongoing military operation in northern Syria, provoking a rebuke from Turkish President Re cep Tayyip Erdogan who called on his‘brothers’ in northern Cyprus to‘respond’. The attack pro voked much larger protests by moderate, secu lar northern-Cypriot Turks on the day of the at 17 1177

tack as well as later in the week against Ankara’s heavy-handed treatment of Turkish-run north ern Cyprus. BILATERAL DISPUTES Macedonia was one of the few countries in the region which continued to generate positive news regarding its relations with neighbouring countries. During the course of January, the Macedonian and Bulgarian parliaments ratified a friendship treaty signed between the leaders of the two countries in 2017. Positive signals continued to emerge regarding the possibility of Greece and Macedonia finally resolving their dispute over the latter’s name. Cautious opti mism that a resolution to the dispute could be found by the middle of 2018, unblocking Mac edonia’s EU and NATO accession process, contin ued to grow. Meanwhile, relations between Hungary and Romania were strained by calls for greater au tonomy for ethnic Hungarians in Romania’s Transylvania region. The demands came from Romania’s Hungarian community itself, with the three main political parties representing the community launching a joint demand for terri torial, local and cultural autonomy on January 8. Coming ahead of the centenary of Transylvania’s union with Romania, the demands have been met with hostility by Romanian politicians and officials, particularly after it was revealed that the declaration had been mediated by an envoy of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Relations between Bosnia and Russia became strained on the economic front after Mos cow again suspended apple imports from Bos nia over suspicions that the country’s exporters had been repackaging Polish apples as Bosnian. Meanwhile, Georgia protested to Bosnia against the presence of Antoly Bibilov, the President of its breakaway region of South Ossetia, at the ‘statehood day’ celebrations of Bosnia’s Repub lika Srpska entity. In a sign of the warm relations between Belgrade and Moscow, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic sealed his December 19 visit to Moscow with a new energy deal, which will allow Serbia to reexport Russian gas. Numerous warm words were exchanged, with Vucic thanking Russian Presi dent Vladimir Putin for his country’s continued support for Serbia over Kosovo and wishing him success in the upcoming Russian presidential elections. The same day, Serbia sided with Russia in a UN General Assembly vote over a motion ta bled by Ukraine condemning the human rights situation in Crimea and referring to Russia as an ‘occupying power’. Relations between Croatia and Slovenia re mained sour over their disputed border in the Piran Gulf. From December 29 Slovenia began implementing the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which had six months earlier awarded 80 per cent of the waters of the disputed Gulf to Slovenia. With Croatian fishermen fearing that they could be stopped and fined for fishing in waters until re cently controlled by Croatia, the Croatian police offered to provide escorts to their fishermen as of January 2018. SECURITY An investigation published by BIRN in early Jan uary 2018 flagged up interesting links between Islamist radicals in the Balkans and Europe. Ac cording to the report, terrorism trials across the Balkans have highlighted the fact that many rad icals in the Balkans were either originally indoc trinated in radical Islamist hubs across Europe – particularly Austria, Germany and Italy – or had maintained contacts with these hubs. Perhaps not surprisingly, radical links overlapped with diaspora links, with Bosniaks from the region be ing oriented more towards Austria while Albani an radicals were more likely to maintain ties to Islamist centres in Italy. At the other end of the region, Turkey became more actively embroiled in the conflict which has attracted, and indeed helped fuel, many of the Islamic radicals in the Balkans. On January 20, Turkish troops began ground operations in northern Syria, in the area around the town of Afrin. The stated goal of the Turkish military and its local allies in northern Syria is to push back Kurdish militants from the Turkish border and establish a 30km deep‘safe zone’ inside Syrian territory. The international community called for restraint on Turkey’s part. 18

Featured Interviews: Women in Politics, a Generational Glance For our featured interviews, we approached two women who entered politics at different times – a young woman and activist from Macedonia, Ivana Jordanovska, and Anna Karamanou, who entered Greek politics in the 1970s. Their views on gender equality and their experiences and careers offer a generational glance at women’s role in politics in SEE. Ivana Jordanovksa, Member of Foreign Policy Department, Government of Macedonia FES : In your opinion, how much power do women in politics in SEE have? Are there enough women in positions of power/decision-making? have much shorter spans. This is a problem be cause it means they rarely make it into the final rounds for the most prestigious spots. Jordanovksa : Not enough. In general, women in southeastern Europe are yet to achieve serious political weight, as unique and distinct po litical representatives. Just look at the compo sition of any crisis-solving group: it’s the men that are called upon to sit around a table and hammer out political steps. However, once these steps are to be implemented, we are see ing more and more often women being called in to make things happen. So, the fame goes to the men, and the hard work is done by the women. This is problematic because politics is rarely a purely merit-based sport. Media has a huge role in this. Turn to any TV station in the region, and count the number of political talk shows that feature only men. Even better, count the ones that have an equal number of men and women. As for the numbers, there are more women in decision-making posts than there used to be. However, we mustn’t be satisfied by this. Many key political posts in all of these coun tries have never been filled by women. There’s a pattern of the type of ministries that are usu ally headed by women, like labour or culture. Once, a brilliant woman told me:“You’ll nev er see women where the money is”. And this rings true. Can you think of a female Minister of Finance? On the other hand, there are some positive ex amples to be noted. Radmila Sekerinska, the Minister of Defense of Macedonia is an excellent example. She’s heading a ministry that is rarely considered within the domain of“female” pol itics, as seen in our societies. Plus, she is a veteran of Macedonian politics. If you look at the av erage years of active involvement of men and women in politics in SEE, you’ll see that women FES : What has been your experience working in politics and policy as a younger woman? Jordanovksa : I am lucky to be currently work ing for this Government and a Prime Minister that strongly supports gender equality, includ ing in politics. Mr. Zaev is the first one to sup port and stand behind the feminist policies proposed by the Minister of Labour and Social Policy, Mila Carovska. And having Ms. Carovs ka, a vowed feminist in charge of this Ministry, speaks volumes. As party president, he support ed all the women who ran for mayor in the past elections. So, Bitola, one of the bigger cities in Macedonia, got a woman mayor for the first time. In Makedonska Kamenica a single moth er was elected mayor. And in Aracinovo, a pre dominantly Albanian municipality received its first woman mayor, an Albanian running as part of the Social-Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM). The effect of these elections might be invisible in the present, but it will have a huge impact in the future. On the other hand, obstacles for young wom en in politics are still numerous. Throughout my work experience, I’ve had numerous nega tive episodes that men in politics rarely or nev er encounter. I’ve been told I’m bitchy when I fight for a policy. Talking about my work makes me a“vain” self-promoter, while it’s acceptable for my male colleagues to do the same. There’s no way to win when it comes to the simplest things, like apparel. Wearing a suit makes you too masculine, but wearing a dress makes you flirty, which automatical ly makes you less serious. Having a boyfriend makes you an unreliable colleague since you might decide to marry and have kids, or move away. 19

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung It is my strong belief, and I am prepared to fight for this any day of the week, that the only way to put an end to this treatment of women is to get more women in politics. So, in a way, I see my stubbornness to persist as my duty to the next generation of women. I’m sure my genera tion won’t destroy every form of misogyny, but we can make it a bit easier, just the way the gen eration of Ms. Sekerinska made it easier for us. Plus, you know how the saying goes:“Fighting a misogynist a day keeps insanity away”. FES : What do you think the role of socio-democratic parties in the region is in regards to gender equality? Jordanovksa : I think that socio-democratic par ties have been at the forefront of gender equal ity across Europe, but also in the region. If history is to teach us anything, I think that we can expect that future governments in the re gion which are formed by socio-democratic par ties will make important moves towards gender equality. If we are to remain true to our values, we must continue to break glass ceilings for women across the board. The ratification of the Istanbul Convention by the parliament of Macedonia is a great example. The new parliamentary majority ratified the con vention in the first 6 months of its mandate. This opens up the opportunity for modifying key laws in the country, for example, the Criminal law. So far, rape has been defined as an act under threat of violence or violence itself. We hope that by the end of 2018, rape will be defined as lack of consent. We still have a long way to go, but the journey is much easier when travelled alongside people who believe in equality and solidarity. FES : Do you see a connection between Euro-Atlantic integration and gender equality? Jordanovksa : I don’t think that we should be lieve that Euro-Atlantic integration will magical ly dissolve our problems. The steps that need to be taken, in regards to policies and awarenessraising, must be done within the country. Great er exchange of people and ideas could poten tially lead to awareness-raising, but we must be aware that serious extreme right wing initiatives hope to curb women’s rights in some parts of the EU. So, I wouldn’t say that greater gender equality is guaranteed in the EU, or NATO. We must do our own work, in our own countries. FES : What needs to happen to attain full gender equality in the EU? Where do you see such changes being made? Jordanovksa : Again, a lot has to be done with in the member states. I strongly believe that the brightest future for the EU lies in European federalism, where decisions are made according to the principle of subsidiarity. In this case, legislation in this area done at the level of the EU would have to be predominantly instructive, rather than directive. And the legislative bodies at the lower levels will have to develop the legislation to accomplish these instructions. As for the awareness-raising, I think that a lot can be done through Pan-European actions and solidarity. Just look at the example of Poland: so many women across Europe, at least virtually supported the struggle of the Polish women for maintaining their freedom over reproductive health decisions. The European Parliament, the EC and media at the EU level could lead by example, which hap pens even now to an extent. By talking about issues of gender equality and women’s rights, they could turn the attention of the public towards issues that are rarely discussed. However, this has to be understood as a goal for all of us, regardless of our gender or work position. We must all commit to doing more, and doing better. 20

Political Trends& Dynamics in Southeast Europe Anna Karamanou, PhD, Vice President of the Political Association of Greek Women, Former President of the European Parliament Committee FES : In your opinion, how much power do wom- der pay gap. It is worth mentioning that women en in politics have? Are there enough women in also show a great interest in art. The high major positions of power/decision-making? ity of those attending theatrical performances, concerts and events of culture, in general, are Karamanou : There will never be enough women women. This is a fact confirming women’s rising in politics and positions of power, as long as the role in public sphere. natural 50/50 gender balance is not achieved in all democratic institutions and decision-making FES : How have things changed since you enprocess. The representation of women in gov- tered politics, for you, for female politicians, ernment(central and local), high public posts and for women in general? Do you see positive and positions of power remains low, placing or negative trends? How has EU accession influ Greece at the bottom among the members of enced gender equality in the region? EU. The results of the September 2015 parlia mentary elections show 54 women elected out Karamanou : Things are certainly changing. of 300 seats in parliament(18 %). At the last lo- Slowly, but steadily. When I entered politics in cal elections of 2014, the results were even more the 70s, after the fall of dictatorship in 1974, disappointing. Only 15 women mayors were the situation of women was deplorable. I joined elected out of a total of 325 and only two wom- PASOK(the social democratic party), which was en region governors, in totally 13 administrative the only party to include in its declaration wom regions. The case of the municipality of Ath- en’s rights and gender equality. In 1977, I was ens is a worth mentioning exception, since elected member of the Central Committee a gender balance is applied at all lev“Feminism with another 3 women(among them els: The president of the Municipal and democracy Melina Merkouri and Vasso Papan Council is female, as well as half of are urgently needed dreou, the former EU commission the 10 vice-mayors and half of the in a world that is not er). Only 4 women, out of 60 mem municipality Council. working, is dangerously bers, we were elected to the C. C.! out of control, and is My personal ambition, at that peri Greece ranks also very low in losing a sense of what od, was to devote my time and my terms of gender empowerment: means to be energy contributing to the efforts 78 th , worldw­ ide, among 142 coun human.” of consolidating democracy and pro tries, according to the classification of mote my country’s social and economic the World Economic Forum(2017 ranking). development. Actually, I rejected any propos At the same time, neighboring countries of SEE al to run for parliament, apparently, because my have achieved better gender balance results: Al- self-confidence was very low and heavily influ bania 38 th , FYROM 67 th , Bulgaria 18 th , Bosnia& enced by the patriarchal culture, underestima Herzegovina 66 th , Serbia 40 th . It is evident that tion of women and men’s supposed superiority! their European aspirations have contributed I was self-discriminated! Thus, I became active to extensive reforms and promotion of gender in the party politics, the trade unions, and the equality in all areas. Only Turkey is very low, oc- feminist movement, while I was working in the cupying the 131 th position. telecommunications sector, also studying at the Athens University and having a child. An exciting Political participation of women, in Greece, does life! It took me 23 years of hard party and grassnot follow the progress achieved in other areas. roots work before applying and being selected It is noteworthy, that women make the 60 per to stand for the European Parliament. cent of the university students, also in postgraduate studies and we can observe their dynamic Few women joined the political parties. At the breakthrough in all scientific and research are- first general elections, right after 7 years of dic as. In the judiciary make 75 per cent of the new- tatorship, in autumn of 1974, only 7 women comers and many women occupy top positions. were elected to a parliament of 300 deputies. Employed women are highly qualified. For first The new constitution of 1975, stated, for first time in history women are more educated than time, that“Greek men and women enjoy equal men. However, this has not reduced the gen- rights and equal responsibilities.” It was a great 21

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung change! At that period, women’s NGOs, which had been abolished by the colonels, re-emerged and became very active players. In 1976, Mar garita Papandreou set up the Union of Greek Women(EGE), which was doomed to play an important role in raising women’s awareness, organising women locally, all over Greece, and simultaneously exercising pressure upon the government to adopt and apply gender sensi tive policies, also to appoint women in public posts. Significant changes favouring women be gan to take place, after Greece joined the EU and PASOK came in power, in 1981. The great est change concerned the totally anachronistic family law. Many progressive reforms followed, since then, which broke old prejudices and stere otypes(marriage, divorce, abortion, etc.), prob lems which had been mostly imposed by the ul tra-conservative and powerful Greek Orthodox Church. Progress since 1981 was visible. Wom en’s self-esteem and confidence was strength ened, although faced with great resistance com ing from traditional cultural practices, unequal distribution of family responsibilities, male vi olence and men’s defence of their privileges. In parliamentary elections of 1996, 19 women were elected MPs(6.3 %), in 2000, 31(10.3 %), in 2009, 52(17.3 %), in 2012, 63(21.0 %) and last, in September 2015, as a sign of backlash, only 54 women elected(18 %). The situation has been bad concerning social partners, mostly dominated by communist and radical left. Not even one woman has been elected in the presidium of the General Confed eration of Labour and only one at the Execu tive Committee. The Greek Unions have proved to be the most hostile regime towards gender justice and against any quota system. Actually, I cannot see any significant progress in this area since the 19 th century! The quota system has been very controversial, within unions and within political parties. Many parties have adopted quota systems for party or gans and also legislation(law N. 3636/2008) has been introduced to ensure that 1/3 of the can didates, countrywide, should be women, in na tional and local elections. This measure has been of little help, since party mechanisms and oldboy’s networks always find ways and means to exclude women. Neighbouring countries, not even members of the EU, have managed much better than Greece. Unfortunately, when Greece joined the EU in 1981, ex-ante conditionality on gender issues was not included in the accession process! However, progress in women’s rights and gen der equality is an irreversible fact, in Greece and in all SEE states. The integration into the EU structures and Europeanisation remains the main political goal. It is good, thanks to Euro pean Parliament’s pressure, that the signing of Stabilization and Association Agreements, in view of accession to EU, require that govern ments incorporate the European equality legis lation into their national legal systems and also actively promote genuine equality for men and women. The EU has, indeed, inspired progres sive policies, which have modernized societies and benefitted women’s interests and gender justice, against long-standing hegemonic mas culinities and old traditions, particularly strong, in the region. FES : The gender wage gap has been growing in the SEE region in the past twenty years. What are the reasons and direct consequences of this? Karamanou : Gender is an integral part of wage determination. Culture and history matter. This is especially true in a region such as SEE, which has been notorious for long-standing conflicts and for a deeply embedded Balkan/Patriar chal/Mediterranean culture. The Ottoman lega cy is still present. Patriarchy is institutionalized through legal, economic, social and cultural in stitutions. Both culture and social habits are de terminants of the value of female labour. In my estimation, devaluation of women’s work, do mestic division of labour, dichotomy between productive and reproductive labour, gender hierarchies, patriarchal structures and pre-entry discrimination, largely explain the disadvan taged position in the labour market and the growing feminization of poverty, the SEE coun tries. The fact that the gender pay gap is wid ening in the SEE region, is also owned to the international crisis, the prevalence of neoliberal policies and the inability of the region to respond by quickly reforming and adjusting to the new realities of the globalization and the fading influence of the Keynesian compromise, domi nant until the early 80s, in the West. Gender discrimination is incorporated in the wage structure through both individual employ 22

Political Trends& Dynamics in Southeast Europe er wage practices and collective bargaining. It also reflects not only current processes, but also the weight of history on women’s marginaliza tion. Having children has a positive impact on men’s wages, but a negative one on women’s. Cultural prejudices regarding the relative worth of women’s skills and collective bargaining pow er, have historically depreciated the value of the female human. Wage discrimination is not only reflected in gender pay gap but is also embed ded in the whole institutional context govern ing wage policies, such as ranking of jobs, the system of jobs grading, or the principles under lying payment systems. I have personally worked for 23 years in a heav ily male dominated company-the Greek Tel ecommunications(OTE). Until 1983, women were only employed as secretaries, telephone operators, and cleaners, even women with uni versity degrees, and naturally they had different treatment regarding wages, promotion, and pension regulations. This policy targeted to early exit of women towards retirement. Women’s place was supposed to be at home, to support husband and children. That was the mentality, until the great changes in the 80s. Nowadays, with the country still sank in the economic crisis, the women who left their job early, making use of early retirement legisla tion, are in old age, poor and desperate. The younger women are faced with the repercus sions of crisis, mostly unemployed, or in parttime and precarious jobs. Women, in Greece, are paid an average of 15 % less than men(at the EU 1 level it is 16.4 %). The findings suggest that promotion of gen der equality in Greece and the closing of the wage gap should pay attention to removing in formal barriers to entry for women in educa tional fields traditionally chosen by men(e. g. effective careers advice, work‐experience place ments, matching of young girls with profes sional choices). It is found that subjects in which women are relatively over‐represented(e. g. Education, Humanities) are also those with the lowest wage returns. Occupations, such as teaching, nursing or sales, predominantly car ried out by women, offer lower wages than oc cupations predominantly carried out by men, even when the same level of experience and education is needed. 1 http://greece.greekreporter.com/tag/EU/. However, it is clear that there is no one cause of the longstanding gender wage gap, since factors involved do not remain fixed, but are get ting reshaped, in line with changing economic, technological, social and political forces. Labour market studies have not fully theorized the inte gration of markets and capitalist system in pro ducing employment segregation by gender. The contribution of feminist theory in this respect has been decisive, because examines both, un equal pay for equal work, and unequal pay for work of equal value(the low value to jobs that women do). Gender equality legislation, as well as gender mainstreaming, are very important, but cannot fully address the structural and institutional dynamics that continue to generate gender based inequalities. What a gender mainstreaming ap proach can demonstrate is that dealing with the gender pay gap, through a purely technical process of legislation, auditing, reviewing, monitor ing and accountability measures will never be enough. This is not to deny the worth of those strategies, but to recognize that all strategies have limitations and no single strategy can do it all. Instead we need multiple strategies that are thought together, integrated through theory, as well as legislation and enforcement. FES : What needs to happen to attain full gender equality in the EU? Where do you see such changes being made? Karamanou : Feminism and democracy are ur gently needed in a world that is not working, is dangerously out of control, and is losing a sense of what means to be human. First, and above all, we need a united and strong EU and to this end to mobilize women throughout Europe to regenerate, and adjust to an ever changing world, the social-democratic ideals of equality, social justice, solidarity, and a fair distribution of wealth. We need a European Parliament with more deci sive powers, as it has been the main defender of human rights and gender equality, contributing to the adoption of the EU gender policy, even inspiring and defending women’s rights outside EU borders. We need to work towards a gender balance po litical world, in terms of policy, gender repre sentation, and stereotypes. Fight for the imple 23

mentation of already existing EU and domestic legislation and also introduce binding legislation for fighting violence and the trafficking of women. EU must tackle rising levels of abusive and irregular situations for thousands of wom en refugees and migrants. Sexual and reproduc tive health and rights is another important is sue within the international legal and political framework. It is also important to focus on all kinds of sym bolisms of male dominance, as it is the ban of women from Mount Athos(the so called Holy Mountain), where only men are allowed to vis it. In this struggle, men should also need to be mobilized and finally convinced than gender equality is a win-win situation and not a zerosum game. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung 24

The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Southeast Europe After more than two decades of engagement in southeastern Europe, the FES appreciates that the challenges and problems still facing this region can best be resolved through a shared regional framework. Our commitment to advancing our core interests in democratic consolidation, social and economic justice and peace through regional cooperation, has since 2015 been strengthened by establishing an infrastructure to coordinate the FES’ regional work out of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina: the Regional Dialogue Southeast Europe(Dialogue SOE). Dialogue SOE provides analysis of shared challenges in the region and develops suitable regional programs and activities in close cooperation with the twelve FES country offices across Southeast Europe. Furthermore, we integrate our regional work into joint initiatives with our colleagues in Berlin and Brussels. We aim to inform and be informed by the efforts of both local and international organizations in order to further our work in southeastern Europe as effectively as possible. Our regional initiatives are advanced through three broad working lines: • Social Democratic Politics and Values • Social and Economic Justice • Progressive Peace Policy Our website provides information about individual projects within each of these working lines, past events, and future initiatives: http://www.fes-southeasteurope.org © 2018 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Publisher: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Dialogue Southeast Europe Kupreška 20, 71 000 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina www.fes-southeasteurope.org Orders / Contact: info@fes-soe.org Responsible: Felix Henkel, Director, Dialogue Southeast Europe Project coordinators: Ana Manojlović-Stakić, Denis Piplaš Managing Editors: Felix Henkel, Denis Piplaš Editors: Alida Vračić, Jasmin Mujanović Editorial Assistant: Tea Hadžiristić Design / Realization: pertext, Berlin The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung(FES), or of the organization for which the authors work. The FES cannot guarantee the accuracy of all data stated in this publication. Commercial use of any me dia published by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung is not permitted without the written consent of the FES. Any reference made to Ko sovo is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence. Any reference made to Macedonia is understood as reference to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. This publication has been produced in cooperation with:

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