🌍 Yesterday in Prague, Dr. Marija Risteska, Founder and Executive Directress of the Center for Research and Policy Making (CRPM), spoke at the EU Enlargement Forum 2025 panel “Women in the EU Acession Process: Then and Now”, organised by EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy and AMO – Association for International Affairs.
Drawing on over 20 years of work on gender equality, governance reforms, and EU integration, Dr. Risteska delivered a strong message: EU enlargement has repeatedly proven to be a missed opportunity to drive genuine gender-transformative change.
She highlighted that while past enlargements—including the 2004 wave—focused on formal compliance, true progress requires deep institutional transformation, political ownership, and sustained funding. Using CRPM’s work on positive masculinity programmes, gender budgeting, and social contracting across the Western Balkans, she emphasized that legal alignment alone never shifts social norms.
🔎 Key points from her intervention included:
• The need to move beyond “compliance on paper” toward embedded, measurable, and financed gender equality reforms.
• Recognition that civil society remains the strongest driver of gender equality, while state institutions still treat the issue as marginal.
• A call for the EU to make gender equality a binding condition of accession, comparable to rule of law requirements.
• A reminder that gender-transformative policies succeed only when budgets, data systems, institutional behavior, and service delivery all shift accordingly.
• The warning that shrinking civic space and rising anti-gender narratives threaten progress across the region.
Dr. Risteska also noted missed opportunities in the European Growth Plan, arguing that strategies must be designed from the gender gaps outward—not retrofitted with small gender-relevant components.
CRPM proudly continues to contribute to shaping a more gender-equal EU, grounded in evidence, regional cooperation, and transformative policy design.
📍 Event: EU Enlargement Forum 2025, Prague
🕒 Session: “Women in the EU Accession Process: Then and Now”
👥 Speakers: Iliriana Gjoni, Marija Risteska, Iwona Reichardt
🎤 Moderator: Vendula Kazlauskas
