Using the EU to promote gender equality policy in a traditional context: Reconciliation of work and family life in Italy

This chapter focuses on how the EU influenced the Italian debate on the issue of reconciliation policies. Since Italy is well known for its poor performance in gender equality, it deserves a special attention the approval of law 53/2000 that for the fist time introduced measures for parents with children aiming to reconcile work and family life. How the issue entered in the agenda? Which were the dominant discourses around it? Who were the actors that mattered in the discussion? These and other questions will be explored. The main argument is that the EU deeply affected the Italian debate at both the institutional and discursive levels. In order to explore the mechanisms of Europeanization the policy-making process of this law will be analyzed. It will be argued that the executive used the EU strategically to act as policy entrepreneur in promoting an innovative discourse on the role of women in the society, a discourse inspired mainly by the EU. By contrast, the parliament acted as the arena of conservation proposing amendments in line with the traditional vision of women. In conclusion, the chapters will study, firstly, how the EU had an influence on the timing of the debate and on the issue definition through the communitarian duty to transpose the 1996 directive on reconciliation; and, secondly, how the domestic political actors and institutions used the EU pressure (in terms of strategies, resources and frames) to promote a change in the area of gender equality.