European Union

Written by Rosamund Shreeves.

The European Union has adopted gender mainstreaming as its official approach to gender equality, alongside targeted action to eliminate discrimination and advance women’s empowerment. From 25 to 28 October 2021, the European Parliament’s committees and delegations are holding a series of events aimed at highlighting the importance of gender equality and gender mainstreaming across different policy domains.

The concept and implementation of gender mainstreaming

Gender mainstreaming is not a policy goal in itself but a tool to advance gender equality by ensuring that all legislation, policies and funding programmes make a positive contribution to equality, and consider impacts on women and men that may inadvertently cause or perpetuate inequality. A gender dimension may be more immediately evident in some areas than others, but no intervention can be assumed to be gender neutral. Consequently, a range of methods including gender statistics, analysis, impact assessment, budgeting, evaluation and audits have been developed to put gender mainstreaming into practice. This should result in better legislation and policy, and more gender-equal organisations.

The EU’s approach to gender mainstreaming

As defined by the European Commission in 1996, gender mainstreaming means ‘not restricting efforts to promote equality to the implementation of specific measures to help women, but mobilising all general policies and measures specifically for the purpose of achieving equality’. It was adopted as the official policy approach in the European Union and its Member States in the Amsterdam Treaty (1997), and the legal basis was strengthened in Article 8 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which commits both to eliminate inequalities and to promote the principle of equality between women and men in all their actions. The specific priorities in the current EU gender-equality strategy 2020-2025 include: taking account of the gender dimension in major climate change and digitalisation initiatives and in specific sectors such as transport, energy and agriculture; introducing an intersectional approach across EU policies; and ensuring dedicated funding for a gender equal future. The European Parliament’s own gender-mainstreaming policy, formally launched in 2003, has evolved considerably over time. The new gender action plan adopted in July 2020, and the roadmap for its implementation adopted in April 2021, include a range of measures aimed at ensuring that Parliament becomes fully gender sensitive, with regard to its legislative activity, gender balance and culture. One specific objective is to strengthen the Gender Mainstreaming Network, which helps to bring a gender dimension into the work of committees and delegations.

Gender Equality Week in the European Parliament

Parliament’s Gender Equality Week is a relatively new initiative, first held in 2020. Spearheaded by the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM), it complements the longstanding stocktaking held around International Women’s Day on 8 March, by giving all committees and delegations a further opportunity to explore issues relevant to gender equality in their particular areas of competence. This year’s programme spans a broad spectrum of policy areas and sectors. As in 2020, the gendered impacts of the coronavirus pandemic will be a key focus, exploring how recovery measures, including EU funding and national recovery plans, can promote gender equality and prevent the widening of existing gender gaps. When it comes to long-term challenges, there will also be discussions around how to ensure that both women and men benefit from investment in the digital and green transitions and on the potential benefits of EU action for carers and the care sector. Gender issues in specific sectors including fisheries, agriculture, research, energy, culture, education, and tourism will be another focus, as will humanitarian action, foreign and security policy and the situation of women in several countries outside the EU, including Turkey and Afghanistan. Violence against women will also be addressed. The week will offer an opportunity to review progress on equality legislation and present the latest results of the EIGE Gender Equality Index, the EU’s main tool for measuring advances in gender equality in the EU over time.

Read this ‘at a glance’ on ‘Exploring gender equality across policy areas‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

For more background information and analysis, see our topical digest on gender equality, prepared for European Gender Equality Week.

You can follow the events via webstreaming and Twitter: #EPGenderEqualityWeek.

Read also:’Women in fisheries’, blogpost by Frederik Scholaert; EPRS video and Topical digest on women in fisheries

Facebook and the French publishers' lobby known as Alliance de la Presse d'Information Générale (APIG) have reached an agreement on the remuneration of journalistic content posted on the US giant's platform, the two announced on Thursday. EURACTIV France reports.

MEPs agreed to close the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency’s accounts for 2019, but asked for part of next year’s budget to be frozen.
Committee on Budgetary Control

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

MEPs agreed to close the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency’s accounts for 2019, but asked for part of next year’s budget to be frozen.
Committee on Budgetary Control

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Magdalena Eriksson shares her thoughts about how football can contribute to sustainability initiatives.

State institutions in Tunisia must return to functioning normally, MEPs say, urging the authorities to resume an inclusive national dialogue.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

State institutions in Tunisia must return to functioning normally, MEPs say, urging the authorities to resume an inclusive national dialogue.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Parliament condemns an attempt to undermine the primacy of EU law and calls on the Council and Commission to urgently protect the people of Poland and the Union.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Parliament condemns an attempt to undermine the primacy of EU law and calls on the Council and Commission to urgently protect the people of Poland and the Union.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Parliament on Thursday called for thorough investigations to be launched into any wrongdoing exposed by the Pandora Papers that took place in EU jurisdictions.
Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Parliament on Thursday called for thorough investigations to be launched into any wrongdoing exposed by the Pandora Papers that took place in EU jurisdictions.
Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Last week, Queen Elizabeth was caught expressing her annoyance at world leaders snubbing the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

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Written by Aleksandra Heflich and Jerôme Leon Saulnier.

The move towards more harmonised European Union (EU) energy policies has always been at the heart of the European project, as large savings from collective action could be expected in this area. As a result, a more integrated EU internal energy market has gradually emerged as a reality, although much more needs to be done to arrive at a more efficient organisation and to ensure further beneficial convergence. Facing and understanding the ongoing climate crisis, the EU has also been at the forefront of combining energy and climate policies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions following its international commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. After over a decade of pursuing ambitious climate and energy policies, the EU has already achieved some progress such as producing 20 % of energy from renewable energy sources, improving its energy efficiency and effectively reducing GHG emissions from sectors under the EU emission trading system. In 2021, the EU stepped up its ambition with proposals for a new set of actions across all sectors to set the right trajectory for the EU economy to efficiently achieve climate neutrality by 2050. Most importantly, this objective is underpinned by a landmark, legally binding European Climate Law that makes the EU one of few main global emitters to have made such a strong binding commitment to achieving climate neutrality by mid-century.

There are many challenges ahead on the road to a zero net-emitting EU energy system by 2050 (see Chapter 2). How successful the EU is in decarbonising its energy industries, that are still responsible for 80 % of EU GHG emissions, will be key for the overall success of the European green transformation and the climate neutrality of the EU economy in a broader sense. Action taken on decarbonising the EU energy system in the coming years will determine not only the potential net monetary impacts and successes of achieving the final environmental target of net zero emissions in 2050 but also whether the transformation is just and fair to all and contributing to achieving a sustainable and prosperous society boasting a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy.

More specifically, the present report, drafted at the request of the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), looks at the EU objective of achieving the decarbonisation of its energy system by 2050 from a perspective of what would happen without ambitious and united EU action in this area. It aims to establish what the cost of non-Europe would be if the EU does not step up its efforts towards achieving energy transformation. It estimates the potential environmental, social and macro-economic consequences in a decade (2030), and three decades (2050), from now. At the same time, the report presents quantifications of the potential beneficial role that the EU could play if common budgetary, coordination and regulatory actions are stepped up until 2050. The report also reviews progress made over recent years as well as analysing future opportunities for boosting the energy industries’ effective actions in the context of the EU economic recovery, and the investments necessary to achieve net-zero emissions for the energy system in 2050.

The underpinning study in Annex II as well as the complementary quantitative estimations and analysis done in this report (see Chapter 3) indicate that many of the key challenges associated with the transformation of the EU energy systemcould be difficult to overcome efficiently and effectively if no further common and determined EU action is taken. Ensuring rapid development and deployment of the green technologies needed for decarbonising energy use in sectors that are difficult to decarbonise, while also reinforcing EU global competitiveness and leadership in some of these technologies, would also be achieved more rapidly and efficiently if done in a concerted way. Moreover, some society- and policy-related challenges, such as ensuring an appropriate non-distortive EU carbon price signal is sent to the internal market, are more effectively addressed at the EU level. At the same time, the distributional effects of this pricing could be addressed at the EU level so that the transformation ensures continued convergence and strengthens EU social and economic cohesion, while being fair and inclusive. Finally, given the constraints placed on public finances as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the appropriate levels of financing dedicated to energy transformation could also be allocated at EU level, thus reinforcing the Member States’ national budgetary spending.

Read the complete study on ‘EU energy system transformation – Cost of Non-Europe‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

• Evolution of prices and convergence in the gas sector (2012-2020)
• Evolution of prices and convergence in the gas sector (2012-2020)
• EU-led sustainable investment plan
• Environmental costs of a lack of ambitious and united EU action (2020-2100)
• Potential adverse environmental impact of complacency and fragmentation
• Historical and projected EU27 net installed electricity production capacity by source (MIX55 scenario)

In this press kit, you will find a selection of the European Parliament’s press releases that show MEPs’ priorities in relation to topics on the summit agenda.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

In this press kit, you will find a selection of the European Parliament’s press releases that show MEPs’ priorities in relation to topics on the summit agenda.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP