This publication is an output of a project called "New role of the national parliaments in the EU decision-making processes: previous experience and new challenges pursuant to the Lisbon Treaty", undertaken by EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy together with the Institute of Public Affairs in Warsaw and Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin with the financial support of Heinrich Böll Foundation.
The Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, in cooperation with Hnutí DUHA and the Czech branch of the international organisation WISE, has attempted to describe in greater detail the causes and manifestations of nuclear energy’s exceptional position in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The result is this publication, which contains contributions by experts from five countries in the region: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria.
In the words of the Polish journalist and dissident, Adam Michnik, 1989 was Europe’s annus mirabilis. The peaceful revolution of that year was a miracle effected by the people in central and eastern Europe. Hardly any one (and certainly no western head of state or politician) had foreseen that a popular movement active in different countries would, in just a few months, topple socialist regimes and force the mighty Soviet Union to retreat behind the borders of Russia.
In the face of the lack of public debate on the role of women in the time of transformation, the publication of the Heinrich Böll Foundation Regional Office in Warsaw attempts to present a multidimensional dialogue about the transformation experiences, giving voice to women. The Authors of the publication judge the past twenty years of reforms from the point of view of women from the former countries of the Eastern Bloc: the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine and former East Germany.
Assuming that it is important not only to implement the “hard core” EU legislation concerning the equality policy, but to implement it in the areas within competences of EU member countries as well, in 2008 the Warsaw Office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, in cooperation with partner organisations from the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine, implemented a project analysing the system of education in individual countries in the context of gender equality.
It is a great pleasure to present to you the newest publication of the Heinrich Böll Foundation Regional Office in Warsaw, devoted to the issues of gender equality. With this publication, we launch a new series aiming to develop in depth analyses of selected gender issues.
