Portuguese MEP calls for more gender equality through the EU budget

The Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament held a webinar on ‘Gender mainstreaming in the EU budget’, with the participation of the European Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli.

They discussed how to ensure that EU funds benefit men and women equally, and the implementation of this equality principle as a horizontal policy throughout all areas financed by the EU budget.

The S&Ds deplore that only 21.7 per cent of EU programmes had gender-related indicators in the last pluriannual EU budget for the period 2014-2020.  This means equality was only written into about €236 billion out of the total €1,087 billion in the EU budget, according to S&D MEP Margarida Marques, the host of the webinar and the European Parliament’s negotiator with the other EU institutions for the new pluriannual EU budget. The S&D parliamentarians will monitor how the €1.8 trillion of the EU budget and the Next Generation EU recovery package are spent on policies that promote gender equality during the new period 2021-2027.

Margarida Marques, Portuguese S&D MEP and negotiator on the EU’s next pluriannual budget, said, “Gender equality is declared a key policy in the European Union. The European budget is the most effective instrument for turning words into actions. The S&D Group wants to see gender equality enshrined not only as a horizontal principle but as a practice in all European policies.  The S&D Group made it clear we want it applied in the current pluriannual budget of the EU for the period 2021-2027.

“We will do everything necessary to make this commitment a reality. The European Commission has still to develop a methodology for the application of gender mainstreaming in the EU budget. It’s unacceptable that in the previous EU budget for 2014-2020 only 21.7 per cent of EU programmes had gender-related indicators – €236 billion out of the €1087 billion. We want to make sure we know how the €1.8 trillion of the EU budget and the Next Generation EU are spent in policies that promote gender equality and reduce bad practices in this field,” she added.

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