ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the apparent harmony between the European Union (EU) and the states whose equal opportunities strategies. It explores the nature and extent of the EU's guarantee of equality and its attempts to eliminate sex discrimination. The chapter considers the degree to which the EU's commitment to equality has had an impact on those states featured in Making Women Count. It examines the extent to which particular features of the national landscapes disrupt the harmony which EU law seeks to promote. Indeed the weight placed on the non-discrimination principle by the European Court of Justice may have played a role in legitimising pressure on the EC institutions to develop further legislative measures to tackle inequality between men and women. Different Member States stand in distinctly different relationships to the EU in relation to equality laws and policies, playing different roles and influencing policy or being influenced by policies differently.
