PhD thesis "Bulgaria and Romania as applicant states. National Policies under European Pressure - Factors of Europeanization in the field of Equal Opportunity policies"

Abstract

Since more than ten years, candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have been taking on all the obligations of EU membership application. The former communist states adjust their institutions and policies to the European Union (model or frameworks) because governments and citizens of the applicant states put high priority to the possibility once to become a member of the European Union.

In the field of gender equality policies it is interesting, how the European Union shapes governance thru the Copenhagener Criteria and the Acquis communautaire, and develops an enormous potential influence on formal procedures and measures arise. A systematic examination of the limitations of this presupposed influence is an essential part of assessing the degree to which the European Union is responsible for the changes that take place on applicant countries like Romania and Bulgaria. As in all former communist states, the value of gender equality as well as equal treatment were well established, but in the economic crises after the political and economical collapse in the post-communist area, it seems that the political elites tries to establish a much more conservative model of women's roles and cave former equality frameworks.

The principal of conditionality used in the enlargement process by the European Union pushes Bulgaria and Romania to change their policies in the European expectations. Bearing in mind on the one hand openness in institutional and political advisories from outside the country and the benefit of member to the Union and on the other hand the possibility to choose an option and to implement in a national manner, based on this the duty to implementation such measures generates an adaptional pressure, that forces national political actors and administrations to act and to adopt the external regulations in a special policy area.

Therefore the following paper presents relevant literature and shapes the theoretical debates about Enlargement, transition and international organizations. Further on, a theoretical approach is carried out and first empirical results give an overview to the adaptional processes in Romania and Bulgaria.