Legislative Observatory
European Parliament
Please fill in this field to find a procedure

EU funds for gender equality

2016/2144(INI)

The Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality adopted an own-initiative report by Clare MOODY (S&D, UK) on EU funds for gender equality.

Members noted that gender issues are usually more often addressed in “soft” policy areas, such as human resources development, rather than in “hard” ones, such as infrastructure and ICT, which receive higher financial support.

This report assesses how gender mainstreaming is applied in the EU funds.

European Structural and Investment Funds (ESI Funds): the report pointed out that the ESI Funds constitutes the most important financial support for the implementation of gender equality policy in the EU, especially in the case of the European Social Fund (ESF), which aims to foster the full integration of women in the labour market.

In order to enhance female participation in the labour market and women's economic independence, Members called for the use of appropriate tools and incentives, including the European Funds such as ESF, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), ensuring the necessary social infrastructure funding for the provision of quality, affordable and accessible care services for children and other dependent persons, including elderly dependents and family members with disabilities.

The report invited the Commission to propose new targeted actions aimed at encouraging women's participation in the labour market, such as a specific programme financed by the EAFRD to support female entrepreneurship.

Rights, Equality and Citizenship 2014-2020 programme (REC): Members regretted that the Daphne programme for combating violence against women has no separate budget line, given that it is currently one of the specific objectives of the REC programme. Members emphasised the need for Daphne to be provided with sufficient financial support and for its visibility and highly successful profile to be maintained.

The Commission is called upon to increase support for European networks on gender equality themes and to bolster the requirement for the collection of gender disaggregated data in the implementation of this programme.

Horizon 2020 programme (research and innovation): Members recalled the three mainstreaming objectives under the Horizon 2020 programme, namely: (i) to foster equal opportunities and gender balance in project teams; (ii) to ensure gender balance in decision-making; and (iii) to integrate a gender dimension into research content.

They called for:

  • gender mainstreaming to be further strengthened within this programme, and for the development of gender equality targets in strategies, programmes and projects at all stages of the research cycle;
  • the maintenance of an independent line of funding for gender-specific structural change projects as well as of other gender equality topics in research and innovation.

As regards other instruments, the report called on the Commission to introduce a requirement for a gender-sensitive analysis into the EU Solidarity Fund when evaluating the impact on populations following natural disasters and in particular on the impact on women.

Members also stated that gender mainstreaming should also be included among the founding principles of the recent Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF).

The report called for strategic recommendations on how to better internalise the EU declared principle of gender equality and gender mainstreaming in the budget allocation and spending decisions of the EU policy areas.

Members called for, inter alia:

  • the EU-level funding of EUR 6.17 billion allocated in the current multiannual framework (MFF) for achieving the objectives of gender-strategic engagement as a first step to be increased in the next MFF;
  • gender-specific indicators to be applied in the project selection, monitoring and evaluation phases of all actions that receive funding from the EU budget;
  • the Commission to monitor closely the effectiveness of national complaints bodies and procedures in the implementation of gender equality directives.