New member states lag behind on gender equality

The new EU member states are lagging behind the rest of Europe on gender equality, a report from Open Society Institute has revealed.

EUobserver.com reports that Bulgaria, Estonia and Slovakia performed the worst, with a 25-30% pay gap between men and women.

Zita Gurmai, a Hungarian vice-chair of the Parliament\x92s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, said: “These findings show us that we need to drastically increase our efforts to get legally binding EU instruments addressing gender equality in decision-making”.