Gender equality: a european challenge at the crossroads of economics, law and politics

Europe is seen as the engine of public policy on gender equality, particularly through Member States' implementation of EU law into national law. Straddling legislative components and soft law instruments (such as a cross-cutting approach and promoting "best practices"), EU gender equality policies represent a vantage point for analyzing the Europeanization process. We shall begin by discussing the specificity of national situations before analyzing the transnational dimension of the EU law on non-discrimination. We shall then look at European equality policies by looking at current debate including: issues surrounding the European employment Strategy, connections between hard law and soft law, gender equality and Europeanization. In affirming the "principle of equal pay, without discrimination based on sex", Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome embodies the founding dimension of gender equality in the European project. In this way, EU texts - from the Common Market to the internal market, and then to integration - place gender equality at the crossroads of economics, law and politics. After highlighting how diverse the situation is in different countries, we will present the ways in which European policy on equality addresses.