The Council of the European Union adopted, on Monday 12 June, conclusions on gender mainstreaming and gender budgeting at the EU ‘Employment and Social Affairs’ Council in Luxembourg (see EUROPE 13191/27).
With these conclusions, the EU countries make a political commitment to establish institutional mechanisms to promote gender equality in all areas of public policy. However, while the management of national budgets falls within the remit of the Member States, the section dedicated to financing focuses mainly on EU funds. It focuses in particular on the integration of a gender perspective into the monitoring and assessment of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) and associated national recovery plans.
Present at the adoption, the European Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli, congratulated the Swedish Presidency on its commitments (see EUROPE 13107/12). Stressing that effectively integrating a gender dimension into public policies requires “funds, but also knowledge and a structure”, she particularly welcomed “the call to the European Commission to fully implement the methodology for tracking gender equality expenditure in the EU budget”.
While the text received the support of all Member States, the Hungarian and Polish delegations indicated in writing that they would interpret the term “gender as referring to sex”.
To see the conclusions: https://aeur.eu/f/75e (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)