On Monday 3 September, the European Parliament's Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) called on the European Commission and the Council to tag gender equality as a key objective in the next long-term EU budget. Our MEP and ALDE Party Vice President Angelika Mlinar was in charge of drafting the Committee’s resolution.

“Gender budgeting is about actively promoting gender equality, by making sure that money is spent on the whole population, not just a few people. While international organisations such as the IMF or the OECD emphasise the importance of gender budgeting for gender equality, the proposed EU multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2021–2027 completely neglects it. This quite simply means that the European Commission is not delivering on its legal obligations to promote gender equality. A ‘modern, focused EU budget’, cannot be achieved without a clear and comprehensive gender perspective that is key to enable better and more evidence-based decision-making, which in turn contributes to ensuring an effective use of public funds and EU added value in all its actions.”

#Genderbudgeting is an essential tool to improve #genderequality in the context of public finance. "We call on the @EU_Commission to recognize gender equality as a key objective in the new #MFF and annual budgetary procedures" says FEMM rapporteur @AngelikaMlinar ♀️♂️🗳️✅ pic.twitter.com/LqWGJ5rpUV

— Renew Europe (@RenewEurope) September 3, 2018

Mlinar argues that international studies as well as practical examples show that gender equality is of enormous importance, both socially as well as economically, and therefore vital for Europe’s prosperity in general:“I regret that no concrete gender equality targets have been set in the proposed long term EU budget. This significantly weakens the pressure on the EU member states to actually put gender equality into practice. Europe is about to take a massive step backwards when it comes to women’s rights and gender equality. Therefore, I am calling on the Commission and the Council to make women count: make gender equality a horizontal key priority in the future EU budget.”

Mlinar specifically stressed the importance of funding women’s rights organisations who often work in challenging contexts in Europe and beyond and to finance activities such as advocacy, monitoring of governments’ commitments, litigation, or public mobilisation and education in relation to the promotion of gender equality and women’s rights.

You can find the full text of the resolution here.