The European Women's Lobby

Abstract

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.