Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

The promotion of gender equality is an objective of the Union enshrined in the Treaties. Ensuring the integration of gender equality as a horizontal priority in the EU budget has been a long-time priority for the European Parliament.

Gender budgeting can serve as a key tool for promoting gender equality by focusing on how public resources are collected and spent. For the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the European Commission has developed, for the first time, a methodology to track EU expenditure related to gender equality at the programme level. The methodology was first applied across all spending programmes for the 2021 financial year, in preparation for the 2023 draft budget. Applying this methodology, the Commission has assessed that the majority of EU spending in 2021-2024 either had no significant impact on gender equality (83%) or its effect could not be assessed (5%). Over the past four years, 12 % of EU budget expenditure has contributed to the promotion of gender equality.

The recast of the Financial Regulation has introduced new requirements related to integrating of gender equality principles in the EU budget. The new Financial Regulation, applicable since 30 September 2024, requires that gender equality should be taken into account in the sector-specific rules through a gender mainstreaming methodology and that, where appropriate, the indicators used for EU spending programmes should be broken down by gender and should be collected in a way allowing for aggregation of such data across all relevant programmes.

The negotiations for the post-2027 MFF present an opportunity to reinforce the integration of gender equality in the EU budget. Drawing on the lessons from the implementation of the gender mainstreaming methodology in the EU budget for the financial years 2021-2024, the aim of this own initiative report is to provide insights and recommendations on how the contribution of the EU budget to gender equality could be better measured and how gender equality principles could be better integrated in the next MFF.

To ensure that the EU fulfils its treaty obligation of promoting gender equality, a fully-fledged and comprehensive gender budgeting methodology should be developed for the post-2027 MFF. This methodology should be integrated throughout the entire budget cycle from planning to evaluation, with clear objectives and using gender-disaggregated data, whenever possible, as required by the 2024 Financial Regulation. The new methodology should account for the secondary effects and any potential negative impacts that the EU budget might have on gender equality. Other, broader societal factors should also be taken into account in the methodology to facilitate an intersectional and gender-sensitive analysis of the impact of the EU budget. Furthermore, to ensure that the EU dedicates an appropriate amount of resources to achieving progress towards gender equality, EU-level spending targets in relation to the promotion of gender equality should be set.