The EU Accession policy is a key channel for promoting the adoption of gender equality legislation and standards in the Western Balkans. Despite EU’s commitments to gender mainstreaming, the fourth edition of our report shows that attention to gender issues is not sown into the fabric of the EC Country Reports for the Western Balkans, the key tool to monitor progress of the countries towards meeting the accession criteria.
We provide an analysis of each EC Country Report against seven indicators and provide concrete recommendations on how gender mainstreaming could improve in the future, from the use of an intersectional approach to the need for a gender-sensitive account of the legacies of the 1990s wars.