European Women's Lobby

The European Women’s Lobby (EWL) is an NGO founded in 1990 and the largest umbrella organization of women’s associations in the European Union (EU), working to promote women’s rights and equality between women and men. National coordination of EWL in Romania is represented by Romanian Women's Lobby.

As of November 2009, EWL membership extends to organizations in all 27 EU member states and the three candidate countries, as well as to 21 European-wide bodies, representing a total of more than 2500 organizations.

With a Secretariat based in Brussels, Belgium, the EWL is one of the longest-standing European-level NGOs and works closely with European Institutions and civil society partners. At the international level, the EWL has consultative status at the Council of Europe and the United Nations Economic and Social CouncilEuropean-level and participates regularly in the activities of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

The EWL’s mission is to work towards the promotion and respect for women’s human rights, by supporting diversity among women and equality between women and men. The EWL seeks to voice the concerns of its member organizations across Europe by means of active policy and advocacy work, project management, monitoring, and awareness-raising across different policy areas. These include women’s economic and social position, women in decision-making, sexual and reproductive health and rights, immigration, integration, and asylum. The EWL, through its European Policy Action Centre on Violence Against Women (EPAC-VAW), also works to combat all forms of violence against women. The EWL’s EPAC-VAW also manages a dedicated European Observatory on this issue. Furthermore, the EWL supports the use of gender mainstreaming for the effective incorporation of a women’s rights perspective into all European policies.

The European Women’s Lobby was created in response to a growing awareness of the need to defend women’s interests at the European level since :

• The scope of the European Union’s activities is continuously extending and affects areas with a direct impact on women’s daily lives, particularly since the establishment of the internal market.
• It became urgent for women and their organizations to participate in the programs established by the Union and to get acquainted with European legislation affecting them.
• The creation of such an organization and its designation of lobbying also corresponds to the particular character of the European-level decision-making process, which allows space for the creation of many organizations, founded to represent a wide range of interests and categories of women within civil society (including various economic sectors as well as trade unions, professional and social groupings).
• These organizations were responding to a real need on the part of the European institutions. Contrary to received ideas, the number of European officials is rather low compared to national institutions. The institutions therefore often call on experts in the course of their work, due in particular to the need for taking into account the diversity of the Member States’ populations and legislations.
• As decision-makers within the European institutions are not directly elected by the citizens (with the exception of the European Parliament) the creation of an organization such as the EWL also corresponds to the need to bridge the democratic gap between the EU institutions and European citizens.

The creation of EWL was therefore linked to the creation of a new form of public space at the European level and a new form of interaction between citizens and political officials. The EWL’s activities meet two types of needs :

• To lobby at the European level and to provide information to decision-makers to ensure that women’s rights and needs as well as a gender perspective, are taken into account in the preparation of policies and legislation.
• Promote their participation in women’s organizations at the EU level and provide them with the information they need to do so.

The EWL thus plays a dual role as a link between women’s organizations and institutions. The EWL facilitates dialogue and exchanges between citizens and European decision-makers. Because of its advisory status in both the United Nations Economic and Social Council and the Council of Europe, the EWL plays an instrumental role at the international level.

The EWL Secretariat is based in Brussels, Belgium.

Address:
18 rue Hydraulique
1210 Brussels
Belgium

METRO MADOU

Telephone:
+32 2 217 90 20

E-mail:
ewl@womenlobby.org

Facebook: European Women’s Lobby
Twitter: @EuropeanWomen
Instagram: @Womenforeurope

https://womenlobby.org/