Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

Removed10. Urges the Commission to develop guidelines allowing for an EU-wide definition and comparison of ‘the value of work’, and to swiftly set up gender-neutral job evaluation tools and criteria with the aim of better evaluating and more fairly remunerating work carried out in female-dominated sectors;

Added35. Highlights that Parliament will firmly oppose any attempt to withdraw or weaken the Pay Transparency Directive;

Added36. Urges the Commission to actively promote women’s labour market entry and retention, take measures to reduce the employment gap, gender pay and pension gap and invest in lifelong learning programmes for women and girls; calls on the Commission to set EU-wide targets aimed at increasing women’s participation in the labour market, to be monitored within the framework of the European Semester; welcomes the EIGE’s analysis of the main barriers to women’s employment in Europe, including barriers to full-time employment, providing a foundation to Member States to address structural barriers to women’s employment; calls for structural reforms, with gender-responsive public investment and economic redistribution to address systemic gender inequalities; calls on the Commission to encourage the Member States to ensure women’s equal access to work with rights and decent wages, including through collective bargaining; calls on the Commission to encourage the Member States to take firm measures to sanction businesses that discriminate between men and women and fail to comply with labour legislation;

Added37. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to strengthen policies and funding instruments that support women returning to the labour market after maternity leave or prolonged career breaks related to caregiving responsibilities; underlines the importance of active labour market measures, tailored reskilling and upskilling programmes, and individualised job counselling, and calls on the Commission to promote and support employers in offering flexible, quality employment opportunities to returning women; stresses the need to address the discrimination against women in the workplace, especially women with children; calls on the Commission to ensure that pregnancy and maternity discrimination are combated through flexible working arrangements that are properly designed and communicated; calls on the Commission to propose legislation on teleworking rules and the Right to Disconnect without further delay and to ensure it is done in a gender-responsive manner which does not exacerbate existing gender inequalities; calls on the Commission to support gender sensitive workplaces to ensure women suffering from non-communicable diseases, chronic diseases, disabilities or menopause symptoms have equal rights and opportunities in accessing and remaining in the workplace;

Added38. Calls on the Commission to propose a legislative framework to tackle GBV in the world of work to ensure the protection of all workers from GBV, including harassment, intimidation and any form of sexual violence in the workplace; calls on the remaining Member States that have not yet done so to ratify ILO Convention 190 on Violence and Harassment in the World of Work and to recognise the right to a world of work free from violence and harassment, including GBV;

Added39. Urges the Commission to strengthen efforts to address discrimination faced by the most vulnerable women, girls and persons faced with intersectional discrimination, as mentioned in the list of non-discrimination grounds and those affected by the automation of jobs; reiterates that these groups are more likely to encounter specific or disproportionate labour market challenges, such as high unemployment rates, low pay and precarious jobs and difficulties accessing labour protection, maternity leave and social security; calls on the Commission to encourage programmes ensuring equal opportunities, including access to leadership and decision-making roles for all those faced with discrimination and uncertainty in the labour market; notes that this should be done by, among other things, ensuring the implementation of the Employment Equality Directive98 across the Member States, strengthening equality bodies, as provided for by Directive 2024/149999 and ensuring access to minimum wages on an equal basis with others; stresses the need to develop targeted employment and upskilling strategies for women over the age of 55 and women living in rural or structurally disadvantaged regions, who face compounded barriers; calls on the Commission to support the Member States in designing inclusive labour market policies including through cohesion policy instruments and the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+);

Added40. Calls on the Commission to ensure that the Member States take the gender dimension into account when reforming pension systems and adapting the retirement age, and to consider the differences between the work patterns of women and men, including all unpaid employment practices, taking into account the higher risk of intersectional discrimination faced by women in the labour market; calls on the Commission and the Member States to put forward a comprehensive plan to address the gender pension gap, including by ensuring adequate childcare support and, mitigating the ‘motherhood penalty’ as well as boosting financial literacy for women and improving financial advice to women in particular to narrow the gender investment gap;

Added41. Calls on the Commission to review the Social Security Directive 79/7100 to ensure that it enables the adoption of positive action and contributes to closing the gender pension gap;

Added42. Stresses that women currently represent only one third of entrepreneurs in the EU101, highlighting the need for targeted action to close the gender gap in entrepreneurship;

Added43. Urges the Commission to develop guidelines for the Member States, the private sector and civil society to help establish gender equality targets and strategies including equal leadership opportunities in the economy, including for women entrepreneurs and to remove barriers for women to start and own businesses in order to reduce the gender gap in entrepreneurship; calls on the Commission to support the Member States in these efforts, and to promote gender equality in access to finance, and address the persistent gender gap in business leadership and innovation;

Added44. Reiterates that the gender gap in the digital and AI sectors inevitably results in biased algorithms; calls therefore on the Commission to promote gender equality in companies working on AI- and ICT-related activities, including through financing women-led projects in the digital sector and promoting a minimum number of women researchers participating in AI- and ICT-related research funding calls; calls on the Commission to put forward targeted initiatives to support women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and to motivate girls to consider STEM, ICT and AI-related careers, including by defining a target for the participation of women researchers in STEM and AI projects, in order to close the overall skills and gender gap in this sector; emphasises the need to reflect the interests of women and vulnerable groups in the digital transition; calls on the Commission and Eurostat to enhance the monitoring of the gender composition in STEM professions, such as in the healthcare workforce;

Added45. Stresses that women empowerment as citizens and economic actors is both an ethical and economic imperative, and that achieving an effective and equitable ‘Union of Skills’ requires dedicated efforts to eliminate the barriers currently limiting labour market participation, particularly for women; urges the Commission to encourage women’s economic activity and ensure equality on all levels throughout everyone’s professional life in the EU, as it is a benefit for European society, the economy and the world of work, given that gender equality is a precondition for European success, competitiveness and sustainable growth; urges the Commission to ensure that proposals for regulatory simplifications do not conflict with the aim of achieving gender equality;

Added46. Points out that the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value enshrined in EU law must be applied in practice; calls on the Commission to tackle the systemic disparities in pay due to the lack of recognition and undervaluation of work in female-dominated sectors such as care, healthcare, education and retailing; calls for binding EU measures to also ensure equal pay for work of equal value, and to improve working conditions in undervalued female-dominated sectors; urges, therefore, the Commission to work with the Member States and social partners to develop gender neutral job evaluation tools and criteria allowing for an EU-wide definition and comparison of ‘the value of work’ with the aim of fairer valuation and remuneration of work carried out in female-dominated sectors; notes that this should be done by ensuring collective bargaining rights, strengthening labour inspections and guaranteeing equal representation of female workers in social dialogue;

Added47. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to effectively address the horizontal and vertical segregation of the labour market as one of the main reasons for a persisting gender pay gap, including by targeting the ESF+ funds to support the combating of gender stereotypes in education and labour counselling, and promoting diversity charters and initiatives in the private and public sectors;

AddedFemale poverty

Added48. Calls on the Commission to make the upcoming anti-poverty strategy gender-responsive by putting a strong focus on women’s structural poverty; urges the Commission and the Member States to reinforce economic and social measures to tackle female poverty and women’s social exclusion, particularly with regard to access to decent and affordable housing, energy and transport; underlines that decent and affordable housing is a fundamental right to be protected and recognised as a precondition for the enjoyment of other fundamental rights; recalls that inequality in housing drives many women to live in undignified, unsafe situations, at risk of homelessness and violence; calls for the Commission to take this into account in its upcoming EU affordable housing plan and to pay specific attention to the housing needs of victims of GBV and adequate shelter capacities; stresses that access to social security and housing for all should be effectively safeguarded in Member States and calls on the Commission to promote it continuously; urges the Commission to continue the fight against menstrual poverty, which is the lack of adequate access to menstrual hygiene products and facilities, affecting an estimated 10 % of the menstruating population in the Union, and disproportionately affecting marginalised and vulnerable groups, limiting participation in social, educational and professional life; calls on the Commission to ensure access to free and accessible menstrual products and, as a first step, to initiate a review of Directive 2004/113/EC with the aim of removing VAT from menstrual products and eliminating unjustified price differences – often referred to as a ‘pink tax’ – that result in higher costs for healthcare products and services marketed to women;

Women’s rights and gender equality in education, training and the digital sphere

Change 11

Removed11. Urges the Commission to ensure gender-inclusive access to all levels of education and to develop high-quality standards for educational materials promoting gender equality and dismantling gender stereotypes, including the promotion of comprehensive sexuality education and consent;

Added49. Highlights the importance of ensuring access to quality education for girls as a precondition for gender equality, women’s empowerment and full enjoyment of their rights; urges the Commission to ensure gender- and age-inclusive access to all levels of education and training promoting gender equality and dismantling gender stereotypes and harmful societal norms and to especially support the most vulnerable women, girls and persons faced with intersectional discrimination in their education journey; urges the Commission to ensure that the Union of Skills addresses gender imbalances, with the aim of empowering all individuals across the EU;

Removed12. Calls on the Commission to develop and adopt a policy of zero tolerance in the digital environment with regard to all forms of gender-based violence, harmful behaviours and narratives that undermine and discredit women’s and girls’ online and offline expression, and to prioritise preventive measures and safeguards across all digital policy domains;

Added50. Urges the Commission to invest in the professional development of educators to better combat gender stereotypes throughout childhood and adult education, vocational education and training, on-the-job training, in all formal and non-formal learning educational pathways and to provide publishers with guidelines on eliminating gender bias in educational materials; calls on the Commission to encourage mandatory training programmes for everyone working in the education sector, including informal education and volunteers, as well as safe infrastructure, confidential reporting mechanisms and disciplinary actions;

RemovedReconciliation of private and professional life

Added51. Calls on the Commission to recognise consent-based, comprehensive, scientifically accurate and age-appropriate sexuality and relationship education founded on human rights and gender equality as a key part of breaking down gender stereotypes and addressing harmful behaviours and to develop EU guidelines for such education for Member States; notes that the aim should be to equip young people with knowledge about bodily autonomy, healthy relationships, reproductive health and the prevention of GBV and discrimination; stresses the importance of protecting minors online from violent and harmful pornographic content;

Removed13. Calls on the Commission to develop the European Care Strategy into a comprehensive European Care Deal, equipped with binding legislative and financial tools for investing in accessible, affordable and high-quality childcare and long-term care services;

Added52. Urges the Commission and the Member States to take measures to reduce the gender gap, particularly in the STEM, AI and digital sectors, by promoting an integrated strategy to strengthen women’s and girls’ education from an early age in these sectors; stresses that such a strategy should include initiatives aiming at motivating women and girls to enter STEM pathways, and calls on the Commission to ensure women’s equal access to vocational training courses, internships and awareness-raising courses in these subjects by promoting training and lifelong learning, disseminating successful and inclusive educational best practices, promoting women role models and encouraging women to acquire knowledge and develop the skills essential for them to have equal access to job opportunities in emerging fields such as the digital sector, the green transition and in the economy and business in general and to prioritise diversity and inclusion in STEM; notes that equally boys should be encouraged to enter the EHW (education, health and welfare) sector; underlines that digital technology and platforms are becoming key in the overall process of providing education and training for women and girls as well as in many work selection processes; regrets the negative impacts of unequal access to technology, which may hinder the development of women’s and girls’ digital literacy; calls on the Commission to ensure that women and girls in all their diversity are not disproportionately affected by lack of access to technology;

Removed14. Stresses the need to aim for an ’equal earner – equal carer’ model in the EU, and to revise and adjust the Barcelona targets in this regard, and also to further develop the measures on maternity and paternity leave with the aim of achieving a more equal gender balance concerning care responsibilities;

Added53. Calls on the Commission to maintain and continue to develop a zero tolerance policy vis-à-vis all forms of GBV in the digital environment; recalls that non-consensual sharing of intimate material, including deepfakes, cyber stalking, cyber harassment and cyber incitement to violence or hatred (hate speech) are criminalised under Directive (EU) 2024/1385 on combating violence against women and domestic violence and definitions of these criminal offences should be properly implemented by Member States’ national laws; calls for enhanced EU-wide cooperation in detecting and prosecuting digital gender-based offences, such as cyber harassment and non-consensual dissemination of manipulated media; highlights the need for cross-border digital forensic capacity and judicial training; calls on the Commission to further monitor, and develop policy regarding other types of online GBV, especially targeting girls and LGBTQI+ youths;

Added54. Calls on the Commission to embed preventive measures and safeguards across all areas of digital policy, with particular attention to gender equality, GBV, and human rights, as well as the protection of minors online; urges the Commission to ensure full enforcement of the risk assessment and mitigation obligations under existing instruments such as the DSA, including its code of conduct, and the Artificial Intelligence Act while also developing new policy proposals, for example under the European democracy shield and the digital fairness act; calls for public scrutiny of annual risk assessments related to GBV and of mitigation measures introduced by very large online platforms (VLOPs) and very large online search engines (VLOSEs) to facilitate research and better understanding of the phenomenon;

Added55. Calls on the Commission to pay particular attention to the ways in which algorithms may reproduce and amplify sexist or degrading content, by imposing greater transparency and by isolating AI-generated data by gender in order to identify patterns of discrimination; urges the Commission and the Member States to establish policies and implement educational and awareness-raising programmes aimed at preventing, recognising and responding to GBV, especially among young people; calls on the Commission to invest in research that tracks gender equality in media and digital industries, including with an intersectional perspective;

AddedReconciliation of private and professional life and addressing gender inequalities in care provision

Added56. Calls on the Commission to operationalise the right to care and to be cared for as recognised in Principle 18 of the European Pillar of Social Rights; stresses that care work must be recognised, remunerated and supported, including as a public good, and calls for the establishment of high-quality, affordable and accessible care systems that ensure dignity for both care recipients and care workers;

Added57. Calls therefore on the Commission to develop the European Care Strategy into a comprehensive European Care Deal, addressing both formal and informal carers (predominantly women in both cases), equipped with binding legislative and financial tools for investing in and ensuring universal access to affordable and high-quality childcare, educational after-school programmes and long-term care services; reiterates that the Care Deal should be a rights based approach to care, and the financing of care infrastructure should be done through progressive taxation and public provision; emphasises the need for EU and national policies for informal carers aiming for financial support and respite, training, inclusion in pension and health systems in order to mitigate the adverse effects of caregiving on women’s careers and economic independence; calls on the Commission to increase investments to improve working conditions and health and safety in the care sector, in which the majority of workers are women;

Added58. Calls on the Commission to facilitate legal pathways to formalise the status of female migrant care workers who are disproportionately affected by intersectional discrimination, to recognise their qualifications and acknowledge their important contributions to care systems in the EU, to provide access to quality jobs in line with the forthcoming quality-jobs roadmap and to ensure fair working conditions for them, promoting equal opportunities within the care sector;

Added59. Calls on the Commission to set specific quantitative targets under the European Care Deal, including a goal of dedicating at least 2 % of EU GDP to care services by 2030, with binding national objectives and regular monitoring to ensure progress towards accessible, affordable and publicly funded, high-quality care services, with specific attention paid to low-income households and single-parent families;

Added60. Calls on the Commission to urge Member States to ensure the prompt and full transposition of the Work-Life Balance Directive and the measures it includes; further calls on the Commission to establish the robust enforcement, monitoring and annual reporting mechanisms envisaged in the directive and where necessary, to initiate infringement proceedings or other enforcement measures to secure full compliance and to allocate dedicated funding under the next MFF, and to propose a recommendation for binding EU-level quality standards for long-term care services, including staffing, training and quality assurance; calls on the Commission to review the Work-Life Balance Directive to ensure it is fit for purpose, to strengthen it by further developing and expanding maternity, paternity and shared parental care leave, and improving incentives for the second parent to take parental leave, further protecting parents and facilitating the combination of paid employment and caregiving responsibilities; urges the Commission to extend paid maternity and paternity leave periods across Member States, promote non-transferable parental leave, and adopt measures to redistribute caregiving responsibilities within households and between the state and families;

Added61. Highlights that inadequate transport infrastructure, lack of public transport connectivity, and unaffordable mobility options constitute a gendered structural barrier to women’s access to employment, education, healthcare, and care services, particularly in rural, remote, and low-income areas; calls on the Commission and the Member States to prioritise investment in inclusive, safe, affordable and sustainable transport systems that take into account women’s specific mobility patterns and needs, as part of broader efforts to reduce transport poverty and promote territorial equality;

Added62. Stresses the need to implement an ‘equal earner – equal carer’ model in the EU with the aim of achieving a more equal gender balance concerning care responsibilities for all EU Member States, and in the EU institutions; calls for strong promotion of paternity leave, introduced by the Work-Life Balance Directive, as well as awareness raising on the close link between the measures for work-life balance and the gender care gap, which feeds into the employment, pay and pension gap; underlines that caregiving responsibilities must not be a barrier to women’s career progression;

Added63. Calls for the introduction of a European Day of Work-Life Balance on 20 March each year, symbolically reflecting the spring day-night equality;

Equal representation and political participation

Change 12

Removed15. Urges the Commission to enforce legislative gender quotas and zipping-based lists for all elections on the basis of gender parity, and to ensure institutional gender parity at all levels of decision-making;

Added64. Stresses that women remain significantly under-represented on all levels of political decision-making; urges the Commission to promote substantive gender equality, including by introducing permanent or temporary special measures to achieve 50:50 gender parity, such as legislative gender quotas and zipping-based lists, as well as monitoring mechanisms, for all elections including on local, regional, national and European level, in line with CEDAW general recommendation No.40 and to address all obstacles to gender equality, equal participation and representation in the political sphere;

Added65. Stresses that the European Parliament and College of Commissioners must serve as a role model in this regard and ensure that gender parity mechanisms are in place ahead of the 2029 European elections; urges the Commission to develop guidelines for Member States, the private sector and civil society to help establish gender equality targets and strategies including equal leadership opportunities;

AddedClimate, environment and gender equality

Added66. Underlines the harmful effects that environmental degradation has on the health of women and girls, especially the impact of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and urges the Commission to raise awareness of these links and to ensure a coordinated and comprehensive approach to this climate change-gender equality nexus in all its work and to enforce policies to prevent the continued destruction of the environment and the ongoing degradation of the health of women, girls and vulnerable groups;

Added67. Recalls that a just green transition is necessary to avoid severe future crises and increased poverty; recalls, furthermore, that the green transition will only be socially fair if it includes a gender perspective and guarantees equal opportunities for women and those experiencing intersectional discrimination as well as their meaningful inclusion in the policymaking process; calls, therefore, on the Commission to appoint an EU gender and climate coordinator with sufficient staff and funding, and to introduce gender impact assessments in all EU policies and legislation, in particular in European Green Deal initiatives;

Feminist foreign policy

Change 13

Removed16. Calls on the Commission to promote a foreign, security, trade and development policy that gives priority to gender equality following the principle of the three ‘R’s (rights, representation and resources);

Added68. Calls on the Commission to promote and advance a feminist foreign, security, trade and development policy that gives priority to gender equality and protects women’s rights in line with the three ‘R’s (rights, representation and resources) and entails a gender transformative vision, putting the need to address unequal structures and power relations at its centre; highlights that such a policy must advocate for systemic changes and the dismantlement of systems of oppression, including colonialism, racism and patriarchy; calls on the Commission to put forward concrete Feminist Foreign Policy actions and measures to ensure equal and meaningful participation and leadership of women in foreign policy, defence and security, and conflict prevention, management and resolution, peace negotiations, as well as peacebuilding, peacekeeping and humanitarian response; calls on the Commission to develop a common tracking methodology for collecting data on women’s participation in these sectors; as studies show the success of Feminist Foreign Policy, given that peace agreements with women signatories have higher rates of implementation and last longer102; highlights the need to ensure that the EU leads by example and ensures a balanced gender representation in its external actions;

RemovedCountering anti-gender movements

Added69. Underlines that foreign policy, security and defence should be understood in their broadest sense, through a human-centred approach, including social, educational, environmental and cultural dimensions, social and climate justice, all of which require strong democracies and equality, including gender equality; stresses the need to implement the Women, Peace and Security agenda as a core principal of the EU’s common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and reiterates that all CFSP-related financing must take this into account while acknowledging the broader aspects of security; calls on the Commission to take stock of the progress made in implementing the Women, Peace and Security agenda at EU level and present its conclusions to the Council and the European Parliament; urges the Commission to put forward, based on the stock-taking exercise, a follow-up Action Plan to the Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security 2019-2024, adapting and extending it to the changing nature of conflicts and new threats and presenting actions to achieve gender-balanced and gender-responsive leadership at all EU decision-making levels and sufficient in-house capacity to systemically integrate a holistic gender perspective and conduct gender analysis; calls for the advancement of the implementation of UN Resolution 1325 through National Action Plans on Women, Peace and Security (NAP 1325-IV) and calls on the Commission and the Member States to reinforce the recruitment, retention and advancement of women in national armed forces and civilian missions, and to integrate gender perspectives into all phases of security and defence policymaking, planning and implementation;

Removed17. Urges the Commission to develop a comprehensive tool to monitor and counter democratic backsliding and backsliding in women’s rights, which are intrinsically linked, and to ensure that gender equality remains a priority across the EU;

Added70. Calls on the Commission to ensure consistent and sustainable budgeting for all gender-related activities in the EU defence and security sector, in line with the EU Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security; emphasises the need for dedicated funding for gender-related actions within common security and defence policy (CSDP) missions, including a specific budget line for gender advisors on civilian CSDP missions;

Added71. Emphasises that crises, such as armed conflicts, occupation of territory, natural disasters and humanitarian crises, energy poverty, climate change and the cost-of-living crisis exacerbate existing inequalities; feminist, LGBTIQ+ and SRHR human rights defenders working on these issues must be protected through dedicated mechanisms, especially in countries experiencing democratic backsliding; calls on the Commission to add crisis management, preparedness and security to the future post-2025 Gender Equality Strategy;

Added72. Calls on the Commission to undertake another revision of the progress achieved in implementing the current Gender Action Plan (GAP III) and to continue to implement the mechanism to track the amount of EU funding for gender equality allocated and disbursed in partner countries and report on it through GAP III; urges the Commission to keep the pace and the level of ambition for the implementation of the plan high and calls on the Commission to start preparations for an ambitious Gender Action Plan post-2027 (GAP IV) to ensure its timely adoption, including by setting aside adequate funding for the implementation of the plan in the upcoming proposal for the 2028-2034 MFF; highlights that the key principles of GAP III – a human-rights based approach, including SRHR, intersectionality and a gender-transformative approach – should be an integral part of GAP IV and their concrete implementation should be strengthened; calls on the Commission to increase political and financial support for gender-equality initiatives and UN agencies such as UN Women and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), with a specific focus on the UNFPA Supply Partnership and to ensure that the next MFF contains strengthened gender equality targets in external actions with 85 % of all EU official development assistance (ODA) mainstreaming gender (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) marker G1) and 20 % of ODA dedicated to gender-targeted projects (OECD marker 2);

Added73. Stresses that gender equality and SRHR must be an indivisible and non-negotiable pillar of the EU’s feminist foreign, development and external policy, including GAP IV, and calls on the Commission to ensure adequate, predictable and long-term funding for gender equality and SRHR initiatives, particularly in low-and-middle-income countries, including by ensuring access to SRHR for survivors of GBV, to emergency contraception, safe and legal abortion, post-abortion care and comprehensive high-quality obstetric, gynaecological, antenatal, childbirth and postnatal midwifery and newborn healthcare as well as post-exposure prophylaxis in all EU-funded humanitarian responses; by supporting feminist and grassroots movements, strengthening and partnering with women’s rights organisations and civil society organisations working on SRHR in all, but especially restrictive contexts, by advocating for the removal of legal and policy barriers that criminalise abortion, same-sex relations and gender-affirming healthcare and to ensure access to education, healthcare and economic opportunities; calls on the Commission to systematically integrate a feminist dimension into its response to international crisis and conflicts, including through the strict condemnation of the use of sexual and other GBV as a weapon of war and the mobilisation of dedicated funding to eradicate this crime;

Added74. Calls on the Commission to establish a dedicated support service operating through EU Diplomatic Representations in third countries, with a specific mandate to provide support for women’s rights defenders and organisations globally in order to counter anti-gender movements and to allocate targeted funding to Permanent Representations to enable them to effectively carry out this task; urges the Commission and the Member States to reaffirm their commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment globally and to increase funding for women’s organisations, especially in the Global South and in regions where gender equality is under attack so as to step into the gaps in development aid for women’s rights organisations that were caused by the cuts in aid from the US Agency for International Development (USAID);

Added75. Urges the Commission to guarantee coherence across the internal and external policies on gender equality, namely in the upcoming post 2025 Gender Equality Strategy (GAP III and GAP IV) and to ensure that they are coordinated with all other relevant existing and forthcoming strategies, frameworks and action plans, such as the EU Disability Strategy 2021-2030, EU Roma Strategic Framework on equality, inclusion and participation, EU Strategy on Victims’ Rights, LGBTIQ Strategy and the EU Action Plan against Racism; calls on the Commission to ensure greater transparency and stakeholder involvement in the implementation of all gender-related initiatives, and to involve Parliament more systematically in the scrutiny and evaluation of these actions;

AddedProtecting civil society and women’s rights organisations and countering anti-gender movements

Added76. Notes with concern the alarming rise in hate crimes and hate speech targeting women, LGBTIQ+ individuals, racial or ethnic minorities and other marginalised groups, and emphasises the link between deteriorating rule of law and democratic standards and the violation of fundamental rights, particularly women’s and minorities’ rights; highlights that the inconsistent implementation of safeguards across Member States leads to inadequate protection and exposes certain groups to higher risks of discrimination and violence; expresses concern over the lack of progress on the implementation of equality and anti-discrimination laws in some Member States and urges the Commission to address this in the post 2025 Gender Equality Strategy; welcomes the reversal of the decision to withdraw the horizontal anti-discrimination directive and urges the Member States to adopt the legislation without delay;

Added77. Urges the Commission to ensure a comprehensive monitoring and accountability mechanism to swiftly address the continuing erosion of democracy, women’s rights and gender equality, including SRHR and the rights of LGBTIQ+ persons, which are intrinsically linked; calls on the Commission to build on the existing mechanisms to assess compliance with the rule of law or fundamental rights and to progressively develop a dedicated mechanism encompassing all Union values under Article 2 TEU, including democracy, the rule of law and fundamental and human rights, including women’s rights, operating under an interinstitutional agreement between the Commission, Parliament, and the Council, ensuring a unified approach to annual monitoring across all Member States and a clear link to concrete Union measures for cases in which deficiencies remain unaddressed; notes all measures to counter backsliding should reflect an intersectional perspective; urges the Commission to conduct in-depth research on anti-gender movements to gain deeper insights into their current operations and financing strategies; stresses that understanding these dynamics is crucial for safeguarding a modern, inclusive and tolerant Europe;