PES activists interview: Zita Gurmai - President of PES women
Zita Gurmai is President of PES Women since October 2004. Before Zita has been active in Hungarian and international women’s movements since the early 1990s. Since 1995, she promoted the women’s section of the Hungarian Socialist Party and in 2001 she was elected its President. Zita plays an important role in the activities of the Central and Eastern European Network for Gender Issues.
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Your Questions:
Benjamin: Dear Zita, is there more progress on gender equality in the old or in the new member states? How is the situation in your own party?
Zita Gurmai: We can definitely see progress regarding gender equality throughout the EU and this thanks to European legislation on gender equality, such as the Roadmap for Equality between Women and Men. It is true that the Scandinavian countries have been the frontrunners with respect to gender equality policies, but progress has been taking place in old and new member states. Often it is not a matter of lack of legislation, but rather lack of implementation. If we look at the Gender Pact, which was signed at the European Spring Council in 2006, all Member States signed this Pact committing themselves to promote, implement and monitor Gender Equality measures and policies. However, we can for example still see an average gender pay gap of 15% throughout the EU. This year, PES Women did a campaign “Gender Pay Gap, shut it!” raising awareness about this issue.
As far as political parties and their structures are concerned, eastern European countries still have to improve the gender balance approach. For MSZP, I am proud that we successfully introduced a quota (20%) for women and for young (under age of 35) people in 1999. Of course, I would be glad to see this quota rising to 40% (as in the PES Statutes). Finally, I would like to underline that the Women’s Sections is one of the strongest sections in our party.
Susan: Dear comrade, I have recognised your support for the depenalisation of abortion in Portugal. Are you not afraid that people in a member state might react allergic if EU "people" "teach" them what to do...
Zita Gurmai: First of all I would like to explain why I supported the Portuguese in their camping in the run-up to the referendum and secondly, I will say something about EU’s solidarity.
Penalisation of abortion leads to illegal, underground and unsafe abortion; it does not lead to lower abortion cases or towards people acting in a more responsible way, as the conservatives often claim. I believe strongly in prevention and that is what we have to do first when we talk about ‘depenalisation’ of abortion; all young women and men should be well informed and educated about reproductive and sexual health rights, medical and psychological assistance should be available for all and all women should have the possibility and the right to choose whether to have an abortion or not.
As European Social-democratic women we want to show our solidarity with women that do not have this right to choose. In supporting women to have a choice, a free choice about their reproductive and sexual health rights, we want to inform them about the rights and opportunities they as a woman in the EU can enjoy and express that every woman has the right to choose, to be well informed and to have the adequate medical and psychological assistance if she chooses an abortion.
Stefan: How do you imagine Europe in 50 years? Will it be a real federal state or will it remain a union of states? Will we have reached a balanced gender representation amongst political representatives?
Zita Gurmai: The construction of the European integration has clearly successful moments, however, Europe faces many challenges – the Constitutional Treaty, institutional reforms, future enlargement – just mentioning the main ones. So, currently it is extremely hard to foresee the exact future of Europe because it depends on many factors and there are different scenarios. As we saw over the past weekend, it is clear that the EU needs to go forward and that common goals can only be achieved if all Member States cooperate.
The integration of gender equality principles into Community policies has gained success and is expected to go further. As far as gender representation is concerned, Member States have always lagged behind the Community in practical implementation. The gender representation amongst political representatives will depend mainly on the political willingness of the national parties’ leadership to give more space for female politicians by creating quota systems or if it already existing by strengthening it.
Julia: How can we make sure that Europe will become more transparent in the future and guarantee the participation of citizens in the European political processes? What role should European political parties and initiatives like PES activists play?
Zita Gurmai: Political decision-making in the EU is generally more democratic than most citizens believe. Many people do not perceive the democratic legitimacy of the EU because it is lacking a public opinion which is necessary to monitor and influence democratic decision making. European parties can play an important role to overcome this communication dead spot by involving grass roots members in discussions about strategies, processes and decisions. This is why PES activists is such an important project. With PES activists the PES gives grassroots members of PES member parties the possibility to identify and support socialist decision making on European level.
Martin: How do you see the development of the MSZP in Hungary? The current polls show MSZP below 20 percent. This seems to suggest that people are not very happy with the exposure of the Hungarian political crises. How can trust be regained for Hungarian socialists?
Zita Gurmai: Politics does not mean popularity contest. Popularity must not influence governing. If a politician only concentrated on popularity, it would not bring benefits to the country. Although we might not be the most popular party in Hungary, our task is to accomplish the most important reforms and to prepare our party for the following elections.
During the last year, our party took difficult but at the same time important decisions. Our measures (austerity measures with respect to reducing public debt; the reform of health care and insurance system; reform of the public services; reform of higher education) might in the short term disappoint Hungarian citizens and thus cause less-favourable popularity rates. But I’m convinced that in the long run people will see and enjoy the benefits of the actions taken.
Let me lighten my explanation by an example. Mikulas Dzurinda’s government (Slovakia) was as unpopular as our government currently, but he managed to win the elections and was Prime Minister for eight years. Slovakian citizens were at first not happy with the reforms but later recognized that they were essential for the country and saw benefits of it too.
Last but not least, during the 1998-2002 legislature in Hungary, the FIDESZ-MPP (Alliance of Young Democrats – Hungarian People’s Party) was always more popular than the MSZP. But guess who won the elections in 2002? It was the MSZP who wanted to win the elections and who won the elections, contrary to the popularity polls indication.
