The European Women's Lobby

Author(s): Catherine Hoskyns

Source: Feminist Review, No. 38 (Summer, 1991), pp. 67-70
Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1395378
Accessed: 11-05-2016 17:41 UTC
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Palgrave Macmillan Journals is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Feminist Review

This content downloaded from 193.226.52.248 on Wed, 11 May 2016 17:41:19 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

THE EUROPEAN WOMEN'S LOBBY

Catherine Hoskyns

The European Women's Lobby was formally set up at a meeting in

Brussels on 21-22 September 1990. The aim of the Lobby is to establish

a permanent representation for women at the level of the European

Community (EC). Women are represented in the Lobby via delegates
from nongovernmental women's organizations, or co-ordinations of
women's organizations, which are operating at either the European or

the national level. The existence of the Lobby, the form it takes and its
potential for action, raises crucial questions about the involvement of
women in mainstream political activity and the ways in which women's
diverse interests can be represented.

The idea of a European Women's Lobby was first mooted in the

early 1980s, with the already existing EC Youth Forum being cited as an
example. Initial soundings foundered on the hostility and/or distance
between 'traditional' and 'feminist' women in most countries, and on the
lack of interest of the latter in either the EC or mainstream politics.1

During the 1980s, however, both the hostility and the distance
lessened, with traditional women's organizations becoming somewhat
more radical, and more feminists seeing the need to 'enter the
mainstream'. Indicative of this latter trend was the growth of the
European Network of Women which tried to make links between
grassroots women's organizations and to campaign at the European

level.

As a result of these two developments the issue of the Lobby was

raised again at a seminar for women's organizations in the EC held in
London in November 1987. At that meeting, where traditional women
outnumbered feminist women by perhaps two to one, a unanimous
decision was taken to set up the Lobby, and seek funds from the
European Commission (subsequently granted) for preparatory work. To
carry this out a group of forty women was chosen, mainly, it would seem,
by the two women's bureaux in the European Commission, and by those

'in the know' at the London seminar. The emphasis on 'organized'

Feminist Review No 38, Summer 1991

This content downloaded from 193.226.52.248 on Wed, 11 May 2016 17:41:19 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

68 Feminist Review

women did not exclude feminist groups or networks which had some
structure (and this varied a great deal between one country and
another) but it did very clearly exclude any direct representation of poor
women or of black and ethnic minority women who are not organized in
that way. The UK representatives on the group of forty came from the

Fawcett Society, the Women's National Commission, and the Women's

Organizations Interest Group (WOIG) of the National Council for
Voluntary Organizations (NCVO).
Over the next two years, the basic structure and ethos of the Lobby
was developed. Europe-wide women's organizations with a commitment
to equality would have the right to direct representation on the General
Assembly. National women's organizations or co-ordinations of organizations in each country would have the right to four delegates each. The
aim of the Lobby was to represent women 'including the least privileged
and least organized' and to promote their interests at the level of the EC.
Its function was not only to lobby, but to exchange information and

develop transnational campaigns. The General Assembly would elect a

bureau of twenty which would act as the steering committee for the
Lobby and appoint the secretariat.
The extent to which there was publicity about or consultation on
these provisions depended very much upon the capacities, resources
and inclinations of the country members on the group of forty, and the
organizations they represented. In the UK, the need to develop a policy
on and a suitable structure for the Lobby, coincided with the desire of

WOIG to break away from the NCVO and establish a separate

federation of women's organizations. The establishment of the National

Alliance of Women's Organizations (NAWO), and the big increase in

membership which followed, facilitated a wide-ranging debate on the
shape of the Lobby and UK participation in it.
In true Community style (though this may be changed in the future)

the Lobby's provisional statutes gave little guidance as to how the

national delegates should be chosen. In the UK, the decision was made
to elect them on a regional basis, with one delegate each from Scotland,

Northern Ireland, Wales and England. The Dutch, by contrast, allo-

cated their delegates to interest groups: one to the feminist network, one

to traditional women's organizations, one to ethnic minority women,

and one to women's health groups. Other countries were less egalitarian. In Germany, for example, the Deutsche Frauenrat, the big
traditional women's council, allocated all the delegates to its member
organizations. A committee has now been set up by the Lobby which will
deal with complaints about or requests for representation.

More than seventy women came to the inaugural meeting in

September 1990. The vast majority were white, professional and middle

aged, but with diverse backgrounds, skills and politics. Trade-union

women were present but not numerous. Only two out of the seventy
were ethnic-minority women: one was elected to the bureau. The
atmosphere at the meeting seems to have been constructive. As one
delegate put it: 'people were mature, they tried to contribute to the

This content downloaded from 193.226.52.248 on Wed, 11 May 2016 17:41:19 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

European Women 69

common purpose and not to make awkward points for the sake of it'. The
main work of the meeting was to go through and adopt the statutes, elect

the bureau, and establish working methods which were acceptable to

women used to widely different styles of political activity.

A draft programme of work for the Lobby was presented to the

meeting but only discussed in very general terms. Much of the work
envisaged centres on the Community's Third Action Programme for
Equal Opportunities due to be adopted during 1991.2 The draft for this

Action Programme has been watered down and effective lobbying will be
needed if it is to retain a cutting edge. The Lobby's proposed programme

also includes, among other items, research and action on aspects of

women's poverty in the EC and on the effects on black, migrant and

ethnic-minority women of the increasing co-ordination of immigration

procedures in the EC member states. One of the first priorities of the
Lobby's bureau, however, will have to be to ensure adequate funding for
the first year, initially at least from Community institutions.

Beneath all this activity run two subtexts. The first is: can the
Lobby become sufficiently expert and competent, and well-enough
resourced, to have a real impact in the Brussels jungle? The second is:

can the Lobby be sufficiently broad-based, democratic and accountable

(and well-enough resourced) to justify its claims to represent women

across the EC? To some these requirements are contradictory, with
democracy being seen as the enemy of competence, and vice versa. In

theory, it should be possible to achieve both, if competence is respected,

but firmly harnessed to the service of the broader membership, if a wide

range of skills and orientations are recognized as valuable, and if the

Lobby sees it as its function not only to operate in Brussels but to make

the Brussels arena accessible to a more diverse range of women. In

practice, especially if resources are limited, the balance may be hard to

achieve.

Interestingly, this kind of transnational politics at the European

level is so new that there is little good practice upon which the Lobby can

draw. Lobbying in Brussels is for the most part an elitist affair with
lobbyists seeking autonomy rather than accountability. But trans-

national politics of a genuinely popular kind is desperately needed if the

hold of techno-bureaucrats and business elites is to be challenged in

Brussels. It is evidence of the current force of European politics, that

women are seeking to establish participatory and effective trans-

national mechanisms, at a time when similar structures for women at

the national level hardly exist.

Notes

Catherine Hoskyns is senior lecturer in international relations at Coventry

Polytechnic. She is doing research on the implications of the European

This content downloaded from 193.226.52.248 on Wed, 11 May 2016 17:41:19 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

70 Feminist Review

Community's policy on women's rights and the way women are organizing in
Europe. She is active in the European Forum of Socialist Feminists.

1 I am using the terms 'traditional' and 'feminist' here as a shorthand for

distinguishing between those women's organizations which essentially work
within the existing system, and those which seek to change it. Obviously,

there are huge variations within these two categories - and some overlap

between them.

2 Since 1980 the European Community's policy on women's rights has been
developed through Action Programmes. These ensure a budget line and give

the civil servants working on women's issues within the European Commission a framework within which to act. The scope and emphasis of the
Programmes is thus extremely important in shaping future developments.

Contacts for the Lobby

Brussels Co-ordinator: Jacqueline de Groote, la Place Quetelet, 1030 Brussels.
Tel: 010 322 217 9020.

UK Liaison: Jane Grant, National Alliance of Women's Organisations (NAWO),

279/281 Whitechapel Road, London El 1BY. Tel: 071 247 7052.

This content downloaded from 193.226.52.248 on Wed, 11 May 2016 17:41:19 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms