What changed

D. whereas movements opposing gender equality policies, family diversity, same-sex marriage, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and gender mainstreaming try to influence national and European policymaking; whereas far-right parties and anti-democratic, fascist ideologies, which are increasingly successful and popular, seek to undermine established rights, hinder legislative progress, and weaken institutional mechanisms designed to protect women, girls and the most marginalised people in our society; whereas they threaten achievements with regard to women’s rights, gender equality and the rule of law, as well as fundamental rights in general, in the EU and its Member States, including through coordinated disinformation campaigns; whereas the mechanisms by which these movements organise, fundraise, mobilise and exert influence across national borders remain largely under-researched, but a report51report from 2021 showed a transnational network making strategic financial decisions across international borders; whereas a worrying rise of the so-called manosphere can be witnessed globally with online male social media influencers promoting the false narrative that feminism and gender equality have come at the cost of men’s rights, using extreme language, normalising violence against women and girls, and having growing links to radicalisation and extremist ideologies52;ideologies; whereas the Commission, as the guardian of the Treaties, should also be at the forefront of the protection of women’s rights and gender equality as such developments pose a direct threat to the values of human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law enshrined in Article 2 TEU; whereas certain Commission proposals aiming at regulatory simplification, such as the initial draft of the Horizon Europe work programme for 2025, risk hindering gender equality, as did the announced plan to withdraw the proposal for the horizontal anti-discrimination directive; whereas gender equality is a precondition for strengthening competitiveness and reaching sustainable growth;

G. whereas approaches towards prostitution vary in Member States, ranging from criminalisation of the provider or the user to legalisation; whereas women in prostitution face more egregious human rights violations, violence and exploitation than other women on average, including high levels of gender-based, psychological, physical and sexual violence; whereas numerous factors cause people to enter and stay in prostitution, including poverty stemming from social injustices and exclusion, inequalities, limited employment, intersectional discrimination, and a lack of safe and legal migrationintersectional opportunities;discrimination; whereas policies supporting people who wish to exit prostitution should be implemented;

Q. whereas labour market segregation, as well as horizontal and vertical gender segregation in education, remains a key factor contributing to gender inequality in the work domain, while gender stereotyping is a major driver of occupational segregation68 that women face continuously while also receiving lower wages69; whereas labour market disparities, differences in employment for women and men across sectors and regions, including in outermost regions, and a lack of fair working conditions and safety for women workers are still persistent across the EU, and the existing gender pay gap is, to a large extent, the consequence of the systematic undervaluation of work carried out in female-dominated sectors in which there is a prevalence of women and only around 20 % of men participate, such as care, education, health and welfare; whereas the issue of ‘equal pay for equal work or work of equal value’ therefore needs to be tackled to close the gender pay gap; whereas education, especially tertiary education, training and social protection, is essential for gender equality, especially for women over the age of 55 and women living in rural, remote or depopulated areas who face specific and compounded obstacles; whereas education is also essential to allow everyone to adapt to labour market changes and have access to quality job opportunities;

S. whereas the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has disallowed measures adopted by the Spanish Social Security Authorities to improve women's pensions and reduce the gender gap;

S. whereas women and girls are still under-represented in the area of education and employment, and especially in STEM, digital and AI areas, with only one in six ICT specialists and one in three STEM graduates being women; whereas men account for more than 80 % of professionals in STEM and in the ICT sector and women account for only 41 % of jobs in science and engineering within the Union; whereas even though the number of young women graduating in ICT and STEM fields has been increasing, the gender employment gap and pay gap remains significant, especially with regard to start-ups; whereas women only accounted for 22 % of global AI professionals in 2018, a problem that serves only to perpetuate and entrench stereotypes and bias; whereas this discrepancy not only represents a missed opportunity for the EU’s technological advancement, economic growth, innovation and resilience, but also hampers women’s participation and careers in future labour markets; whereas the growing demand for STEM skills in digital, clean and circular sectors, as well as in aerospace, defence and traditional industries, calls for the strengthening of qualified female talent; whereas the EU is facing many challenges that affect its competitiveness and this underscores the need for increased economic activity that is inclusive of all; whereas access for women, in all their diversity, to all sectors, including ICT and financial sectors, is key for the competitiveness of the European economy; whereas gender equality is a driver of economic growth, innovation and social cohesion;

T. whereas women and girls are still under-represented in the area of education and employment, and especially in STEM, digital and AI areas, with only one in six ICT specialists and one in three STEM graduates being women73; whereas men account for more than 80 % of professionals in STEM and in the ICT sector74 and women account for only 41 % of jobs in science and engineering within the Union; whereas even though the number of young women graduating in ICT and STEM fields has been increasing, the gender employment gap and pay gap remains significant, especially with regard to start-ups; whereas women only accounted for 22 % of global AI professionals in 2018, a problem that serves only to perpetuate and entrench stereotypes and bias75; whereas this discrepancy not only represents a missed opportunity for the EU’s technological advancement, economic growth, innovation and resilience, but also hampers women’s participation and careers in future labour markets; whereas the growing demand for STEM skills in digital, clean and circular sectors, as well as in aerospace, defence and traditional industries, calls for the strengthening of qualified female talent; whereas the EU is facing many challenges that affect its competitiveness and this underscores the need for increased economic activity that is inclusive of all; whereas access for women, in all their diversity, to all sectors, including ICT and financial sectors, is key for the competitiveness of the European economy; whereas gender equality is a driver of economic growth, innovation and social cohesion;

X.W. whereas almost 30 % of women in the EU work part-time; whereas women in the EU are much more likely to have to give up paid work to take care of children and/or other dependants and the unavailability, prohibitive costs and lack of high-quality childcare infrastructure and services, particularly in the public sphere, continue to be a significant barrier to the equal participation of women in all aspects of life, including work; whereas the International Labour Organization has emphasised the lack of public and private investment in childcare and other formal care services, and it stresses that long-standing unequal attitudes towards care activities at large push the economic and social cost of caregiving predominantly onto women; whereas unpaid care responsibilities keep around 7.77,7 million women in the EU from participating in the labour market and there is a large untapped potential in balancing the care sector for our economies, as highlighted by EIGE estimates that predict that the employment rate could increase to 80 % by 2050 if substantial improvements are made in gender equality80;equality; whereas according to Eurofound’s European Quality of Life Survey, 42 % of non-working carers are in the lowest income quartile (compared to 24 % of non-carers), 59 % of non-working carers have difficulty making ends meet (compared to 46 % of non-carers) and 80 % of care is provided by informal carers, predominantly women aged 45-75, which contributes to gender inequalities in terms of employment and income; whereas approximately one in four paid care workers is a migrant, many of whom face exploitation due to a lack of adequate regularisation pathways, which is especially relevant considering that about 9 out of 10 paid care workers are women;

Y. whereas the establishment of a care deal for Europe, minimum wages in the care sector and access to high quality, free public services would contribute to reducing poverty and closing the gender pay gap, pension gap and care gap;

X. whereas in 2024, the CEDAW Committee issued general recommendation No. 40 on the equal and inclusive representation of women in decision-making systems, and included, in the pillars of the recommendation, 50-50 parity between women and men. in all their diversity. in terms of equal access to and equal power within decision-making systems; whereas the percentage of seats held by women in national parliaments rose from 11,3 % in 1995 to only 27,2 % in 2025; whereas in the EU in 2025 only around a third of parliamentary seats are held by women; whereas, despite many policy and legislative initiatives, women are faced with structural, cultural and institutional barriers and research shows that they are under-represented at all levels of economic and political decision-making worldwide, including at the local and regional levels, and that the achievement of gender parity and representation in political life, as well as in the business sector – particularly within boards of directors – is a distant prospect that requires targeted action at all levels of governance;

Z. whereas in 2024, the CEDAW Committee issued general recommendation No. 40 on the equal and inclusive representation of women in decision-making systems, and included, in the pillars of the recommendation, 50-50 parity between women and men. in all their diversity. in terms of equal access to and equal power within decision-making systems; whereas the percentage of seats held by women in national parliaments rose from 11.3 % in 1995 to only 27.2 % in 202581; whereas in the EU in 2025 only around a third of parliamentary seats are held by women82; whereas, despite many policy and legislative initiatives, women are faced with structural, cultural and institutional barriers and research shows that they are under-represented at all levels of economic and political decision-making worldwide, including at the local and regional levels, and that the achievement of gender parity and representation in political life, as well as in the business sector – particularly within boards of directors – is a distant prospect that requires targeted action at all levels of governance;

Y. whereas the climate emergency and gender inequalities are interlinked and the climate crises perpetuates existing inequalities, including access to education and employment opportunities, access to and control over land and natural resources, and participation in decision-making spaces; whereas the harmful effects of climate change and ecosystem degradation are being borne disproportionately by women and girls, notably those in already marginalised situations, including Indigenous and other natural resource-dependent communities;

AA. whereas the climate emergency and gender inequalities are interlinked and the climate crises perpetuates existing inequalities, including access to education and employment opportunities, access to and control over land and natural resources, and participation in decision-making spaces83; whereas the harmful effects of climate change and ecosystem degradation are being borne disproportionately by women and girls, notably those in already marginalised situations, including Indigenous and other natural resource-dependent communities;

Z. whereas the Union is facing multiple crises, including climate disasters, armed conflicts, pandemics and populism, the effects of which are gendered; whereas armed conflicts disproportionately impact women and girls, including through the rise in the use of GBV as a weapon of war, and have resulted in an overall deterioration of women's rights, with detrimental consequences for the full enjoyment of the human rights of women and girls globally; whereas, despite the WPS agenda being central to contemporary global peace and security challenges, women's participation and leadership in foreign policy, defence, security and peacebuilding is still lacking, to a largely unknown extent due to the shortage of data collection; whereas several projects have been developed with the aim of collecting comprehensive data, such as the #SHEcurity index, that can serve as good practices and examples for data collection at EU level; whereas women are continuously under-represented in peace negotiations and in 2022 they represented only 16 % of negotiators in active peace processes led or co-led by the United Nations; whereas including the gender perspective in the EU's foreign and security policy means acknowledging and combating the specific gender dimensions and impact of global phenomena such as climate change, migration, trade and security, as well as putting a focus on the experiences and needs of women and groups facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and marginalisation at the centre of policymaking; whereas the gender action plan (GAP) is the EU's ambitious strategy for contributing to the SDGs, in particular SDG 5, and accelerating progress on gender equality; whereas women's empowerment is a priority of all EU external policies and actions, having also played an active role in shaping the Agenda 2030; whereas the EU's external policies include a commitment to ensure that 85 % of all new programmes contribute to gender equality and women's empowerment; whereas such a commitment is currently missing from the EU's internal policies, including at Member State level, posing a risk of unequal progress towards gender equality within the EU;

AB. whereas the Union is facing multiple crises, including climate disasters, armed conflicts, pandemics and populism, the effects of which are gendered; whereas armed conflicts disproportionately impact women and girls, including through the rise in the use of GBV as a weapon of war84, and have resulted in an overall deterioration of women's rights, with detrimental consequences for the full enjoyment of the human rights of women and girls globally; whereas, despite the WPS agenda being central to contemporary global peace and security challenges, women's participation and leadership in foreign policy, defence, security and peacebuilding is still lacking, to a largely unknown extent due to the shortage of data collection; whereas several projects have been developed with the aim of collecting comprehensive data, such as the #SHEcurity index, that can serve as good practices and examples for data collection at EU level; whereas women are continuously under-represented in peace negotiations and in 2022 they represented only 16 % of negotiators in active peace processes led or co-led by the United Nations85; whereas including the gender perspective in the EU's foreign and security policy means acknowledging and combating the specific gender dimensions and impact of global phenomena such as climate change, migration, trade and security, as well as putting a focus on the experiences and needs of women and groups facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and marginalisation at the centre of policymaking; whereas the gender action plan (GAP) is the EU's ambitious strategy for contributing to the SDGs, in particular SDG 5, and accelerating progress on gender equality; whereas women's empowerment is a priority of all EU external policies and actions, having also played an active role in shaping the Agenda 2030; whereas the EU's external policies include a commitment to ensure that 85 % of all new programmes contribute to gender equality and women's empowerment; whereas such a commitment is currently missing from the EU's internal policies, including at Member State level, posing a risk of unequal progress towards gender equality within the EU;

AC. whereas gender equality, as one of the core values of the EU, needs to be reflected and promoted across all EU programmes, policies and activities, including in the delivery of their objectives; whereas gender equality is one of the four horizontal principles in the multiannual financial framework (MFF) 2021-2027, yet according to the European Court of Auditors, gender equality is the least well integrated horizontal priority in the EU's long-term budget86; whereas the current gender expenditure tracking methodology of the EU budget does not contain a category to capture budgetary interventions with a negative impact on gender equality; whereas EU gender budgeting has been applied primarily as a tracking mechanism, rather than being embedded throughout the entire budget cycle, from planning to evaluation; whereas this limits its transformative potential; whereas the implementation of the new post-2025 Gender Equality Strategy depends on the next MFF 2028-2034, which will therefore become a key vehicle for its execution; whereas there is a need to align the targets between the next MFF and the post-2025 Gender Equality Strategy;

10. Underlines that marginalised groups face a heightened risk of violence and that intersecting forms of discrimination intensify the effects of GBV and re-victimisation, including due to law enforcement practices;re-victimisation; calls on the Commission, therefore, to develop and, in cooperation with the Member States, implement mandatory, comprehensive training for all legal professionals, including judges and prosecutors, on issues related to GBV, intersectionality and victim support to ensure that legal professionals are adequately equipped to handle cases, both offline and online, in a gender sensitive and intersectional manner and to ensure that victims are not subject to secondary victimisation during legal proceedings;

36. Urges the Commission to actively promote women’s labour market entry and retention, take measures to reduce the employment gap, gender pay and pension gap and invest in lifelong learning programmes for women and girls; calls on the Commission to set EU-wide targets aimed at increasing women’s participation in the labour market, to be monitored within the framework of the European Semester;market; welcomes the EIGE’s analysis of the main barriers to women’s employment in Europe, including barriers to full-time employment, providing a foundation to Member States to address structural barriers to women’s employment; calls for structural reforms, with gender-responsive public investment and economic redistribution to address systemic gender inequalities; calls on the Commission to encourage the Member States to ensure women’s equal access to work with rights and decent wages, including through collective bargaining; calls on the Commission to encourage the Member States to take firm measures to sanction businesses that discriminate between men and women and fail to comply with labour legislation;

47. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to effectively address the horizontal and vertical segregation of the labour market as one of the main reasons for a persisting gender pay gap, including by targeting the ESF+ funds to support the combating of gender stereotypes in education and labour counselling, and promoting diversity charters and initiatives in the private and public sectors;

48. Calls on the Commission to make the upcoming anti-poverty strategy gender-responsive by putting a strong focus on women’s structural poverty; urges the Commission and the Member States to reinforce economic and social measures to tackle female poverty and women’s social exclusion, particularly with regard to access to decent and affordable housing, energy and transport; underlines that decent and affordable housing is a fundamental right to be protected and recognised as a precondition for the enjoyment of other fundamental rights; recalls that inequality in housing drives many women to live in undignified, unsafe situations, at risk of homelessness and violence; calls for the Commission to take this into account in its upcoming EU affordable housing plan and to pay specific attention to the housing needs of victims of GBV and adequate shelter capacities; stresses that access to social security and housing for all should be effectively safeguarded in Member States and calls on the Commission to promote it continuously; urges the Commission to continue the fight against menstrual poverty, which is the lack of adequate access to menstrual hygiene products and facilities, affecting an estimated 10 % of the menstruating population in the Union, and disproportionately affecting marginalised and vulnerable groups, limiting participation in social, educational and professional life; calls on the Commission to ensure access to free and accessible menstrual products and, as a first step, to initiate a review of Directive 2004/113/EC with the aim of removing VAT from menstrual products and eliminating unjustified price differences – often referred to as a ‘pink tax’ – that result in higher costs for healthcare products and services marketed to women;

59. Calls on the Commission to set specific quantitative targets under the European Care Deal, including a goal of dedicating at least 2 % of EU GDP to care services by 2030, with binding national objectives and regular monitoring to ensure progress towards accessible, affordable and publicly funded, high-quality care services, with specific attention paid to low-income households and single-parent families;

59. Calls on the Commission to urge Member States to ensure the prompt and full transposition of the Work-Life Balance Directive and the measures it includes; further calls on the Commission to establish the robust enforcement, monitoring and annual reporting mechanisms envisaged in the directive and where necessary, to initiate infringement proceedings or other enforcement measures to secure full compliance and to allocate dedicated funding under the next MFF, and to propose a recommendation for EU-level quality standards for long-term care services, including staffing, training and quality assurance; calls on the Commission to review the Work-Life Balance Directive to ensure it is fit for purpose, to strengthen it by further developing and expanding maternity, paternity and shared parental care leave, and improving incentives for the second parent to take parental leave, further protecting parents and facilitating the combination of paid employment and caregiving responsibilities; urges the Commission to extend paid maternity and paternity leave periods across Member States, promote non-transferable parental leave, and adopt measures to redistribute caregiving responsibilities within households and between the state and families;

60. Calls on the Commission to urge Member States to ensure the prompt and full transposition of the Work-Life Balance Directive and the measures it includes; further calls on the Commission to establish the robust enforcement, monitoring and annual reporting mechanisms envisaged in the directive and where necessary, to initiate infringement proceedings or other enforcement measures to secure full compliance and to allocate dedicated funding under the next MFF, and to propose a recommendation for binding EU-level quality standards for long-term care services, including staffing, training and quality assurance; calls on the Commission to review the Work-Life Balance Directive to ensure it is fit for purpose, to strengthen it by further developing and expanding maternity, paternity and shared parental care leave, and improving incentives for the second parent to take parental leave, further protecting parents and facilitating the combination of paid employment and caregiving responsibilities; urges the Commission to extend paid maternity and paternity leave periods across Member States, promote non-transferable parental leave, and adopt measures to redistribute caregiving responsibilities within households and between the state and families;

Equal representation and political participation

64. Stresses that women remain significantly under-represented on all levels of political decision-making; urges the Commission to promote substantive gender equality, including by introducing permanent or temporary special measures to achieve 50:50 gender parity, such as legislative gender quotas and zipping-based lists, as well as monitoring mechanisms, for all elections including on local, regional, national and European level, in line with CEDAW general recommendation No.40 and to address all obstacles to gender equality, equal participation and representation in the political sphere;

65. Stresses that the European Parliament and College of Commissioners must serve as a role model in this regard and ensure that gender parity mechanisms are in place ahead of the 2029 European elections; urges the Commission to develop guidelines for Member States, the private sector and civil society to help establish gender equality targets and strategies including equal leadership opportunities;

67. Recalls that a just green transition is necessary to avoid severe future crises and increased poverty; recalls, furthermore, that the green transition will only be socially fair if it includes a gender perspective and guarantees equal opportunities for women and those experiencing intersectional discrimination as well as their meaningful inclusion in the policymaking process; calls, therefore, on the Commission to appoint an EU gender and climate coordinator with sufficient staff and funding, and to introduce gender impact assessments in all EU policies and legislation, in particular in European Green Deal initiatives;

64. Underlines that foreign policy, security and defence should be understood in their broadest sense, through a human-centred approach, including social, educational, environmental and cultural dimensions, social and climate justice, all of which require strong democracies and equality, including gender equality; stresses the need to implement the Women, Peace and Security agenda as a core principal of the EU’s common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and reiterates that all CFSP-related financing must take this into account while acknowledging the broader aspects of security; calls on the Commission to take stock of the progress made in implementing the Women, Peace and Security agenda at EU level and present its conclusions to the Council and the European Parliament; urges the Commission to put forward, based on the stock-taking exercise, a follow-up Action Plan to the Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security 2019-2024, adapting and extending it to the changing nature of conflicts and new threats and presenting actions to achieve gender-balanced and gender-responsive leadership at EU decision-making levels; calls for the advancement of the implementation of UN Resolution 1325 through National Action Plans on Women, Peace and Security (NAP 1325-IV) and calls on the Commission and the Member States to reinforce the recruitment, retention and advancement of women in national armed forces and civilian missions, and to integrate gender perspectives into security and defence policymaking, planning and implementation;

Feminist foreign policy

68. Calls on the Commission to promote and advance a feminist foreign, security, trade and development policy that gives priority to gender equality and protects women’s rights in line with the three ‘R’s (rights, representation and resources) and entails a gender transformative vision, putting the need to address unequal structures and power relations at its centre; highlights that such a policy must advocate for systemic changes and the dismantlement of systems of oppression, including colonialism, racism and patriarchy; calls on the Commission to put forward concrete Feminist Foreign Policy actions and measures to ensure equal and meaningful participation and leadership of women in foreign policy, defence and security, and conflict prevention, management and resolution, peace negotiations, as well as peacebuilding, peacekeeping and humanitarian response; calls on the Commission to develop a common tracking methodology for collecting data on women’s participation in these sectors; as studies show the success of Feminist Foreign Policy, given that peace agreements with women signatories have higher rates of implementation and last longer102; highlights the need to ensure that the EU leads by example and ensures a balanced gender representation in its external actions;

69. Underlines that foreign policy, security and defence should be understood in their broadest sense, through a human-centred approach, including social, educational, environmental and cultural dimensions, social and climate justice, all of which require strong democracies and equality, including gender equality; stresses the need to implement the Women, Peace and Security agenda as a core principal of the EU’s common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and reiterates that all CFSP-related financing must take this into account while acknowledging the broader aspects of security; calls on the Commission to take stock of the progress made in implementing the Women, Peace and Security agenda at EU level and present its conclusions to the Council and the European Parliament; urges the Commission to put forward, based on the stock-taking exercise, a follow-up Action Plan to the Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security 2019-2024, adapting and extending it to the changing nature of conflicts and new threats and presenting actions to achieve gender-balanced and gender-responsive leadership at all EU decision-making levels and sufficient in-house capacity to systemically integrate a holistic gender perspective and conduct gender analysis; calls for the advancement of the implementation of UN Resolution 1325 through National Action Plans on Women, Peace and Security (NAP 1325-IV) and calls on the Commission and the Member States to reinforce the recruitment, retention and advancement of women in national armed forces and civilian missions, and to integrate gender perspectives into all phases of security and defence policymaking, planning and implementation;

72.67. Calls on the Commission to undertake another revision of the progress achieved in implementing the current Gender Action Plan (GAP III) and to continue to implement the mechanism to track the amount of EU funding for gender equality allocated and disbursed in partner countries and report on it through GAP III; urges the Commission to keep the pace and the level of ambition for the implementation of the plan high and calls on the Commission to start preparations for an ambitious Gender Action Plan post-2027 (GAP IV) to ensure its timely adoption, including by setting aside adequate funding for the implementation of the plan in the upcoming proposal for the 2028-2034 MFF; highlights that the key principles of GAP III – a human-rights based approach, including SRHR, intersectionality and a gender-transformative approach – should be an integral part of GAP IV and their concrete implementation should be strengthened; calls on the Commission to increase political and financial support for gender-equality initiatives and UN agencies such as UN Women and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), with a specific focus on the UNFPA Supply Partnership and to ensure that the next MFF contains strengthened gender equality targets in external actions with 85 % of all EU official development assistance (ODA) mainstreaming gender (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) marker G1) and 20 % of ODA dedicated to gender-targeted projects (OECD marker 2);Partnership;

73. Stresses that gender equality and SRHR must be an indivisible and non-negotiable pillar of the EU’s feminist foreign, development and external policy, including GAP IV, and calls on the Commission to ensure adequate, predictable and long-term funding for gender equality and SRHR initiatives, particularly in low-and-middle-income countries, including by ensuring access to SRHR for survivors of GBV, to emergency contraception, safe and legal abortion, post-abortion care and comprehensive high-quality obstetric, gynaecological, antenatal, childbirth and postnatal midwifery and newborn healthcare as well as post-exposure prophylaxis in all EU-funded humanitarian responses; by supporting feminist and grassroots movements, strengthening and partnering with women’s rights organisations and civil society organisations working on SRHR in all, but especially restrictive contexts, by advocating for the removal of legal and policy barriers that criminalise abortion, same-sex relations and gender-affirming healthcare and to ensure access to education, healthcare and economic opportunities; calls on the Commission to systematically integrate a feminist dimension into its response to international crisis and conflicts, including through the strict condemnation of the use of sexual and other GBV as a weapon of war and the mobilisation of dedicated funding to eradicate this crime;

68. Calls on the Commission to establish a dedicated support service operating through EU Diplomatic Representations in third countries, with a specific mandate to provide support for women’s rights defenders and organisations globally in order to counter anti-gender movements; urges the Commission and the Member States to reaffirm their commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment globally and to increase funding for women’s organisations, especially in the Global South and in regions where gender equality is under attack so as to step into the gaps in development aid for women’s rights organisations that were caused by the cuts in aid from the US Agency for International Development (USAID);

74. Calls on the Commission to establish a dedicated support service operating through EU Diplomatic Representations in third countries, with a specific mandate to provide support for women’s rights defenders and organisations globally in order to counter anti-gender movements and to allocate targeted funding to Permanent Representations to enable them to effectively carry out this task; urges the Commission and the Member States to reaffirm their commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment globally and to increase funding for women’s organisations, especially in the Global South and in regions where gender equality is under attack so as to step into the gaps in development aid for women’s rights organisations that were caused by the cuts in aid from the US Agency for International Development (USAID);

78.72. Highlights with great concern the growth of the ‘manosphere’; underlines that algorithms used by social media platforms amplify extreme misogynistic content; urges the Commission to investigate and sanction VPLOs that do not fulfil their obligations to remove harmful content; urges the Commission to explore the growing divergence in attitudes between young men and women towards feminism and gender equality, to assess its societal consequences, particularly in online spaces, and to develop measures to address and counter the rise of misogynistic, far-right values among boys and young men concerning gender equality and women’s rights; calls therefore on the Commission to promote comprehensive, age appropriate sexuality and relationship education in schools, strengthen critical media literacy, counter gender misinformation and disinformation and address gender stereotypes; stresses the need for a deeper understanding of the incel phenomenon and ideology and emphasises the importance of prevention by more active policies to counter them and their narratives together with potential underlying mental health issues and security issues;

83. Reiterates that all efforts to achieve progress in gender equality must follow the principles of gender mainstreaming, ensuring that gender perspectives are integrated into all policies, actions and processes across all levels of governance, within the EU; calls on the Commission to recommit, to gender mainstreaming in all sectors, including in non-social sectors such as trade, energy, agriculture; calls on the Commission to mainstream gender equality in all EU migration and asylum policies with special focus on women, girls and LGBTIQ+ people, and to mitigate protection risks; calls on the Commission to continue to undertake a formal evaluation of the gender impact of EU financed programmes, including modalities such as budget support, and to report back to the European Parliament; stresses that this evaluation should be based on gender-disaggregated data and that its result should be integrated in future programming; reiterates the importance of financial resources for gender mainstreaming;

84. Calls on the Commission to ensure and strengthen the application of gender mainstreaming in its structures, methods and tools, and to ensure that the gender perspective is integrated into all of the Commission’s proposals, including all budgetary procedures;

85. Calls on the Commission to support the setting up of a gender-equality policy expert group to support the existing Commission task force on addressing the specific challenges that impact women’s quality of life and participation in society, foster collaboration and exchange of best practices, drive the women’s health, social, research and education agenda across the EU and meet the EU Treaty’s goal to eliminate inequalities and promote equality;

86. Calls on the Commission to ensure, in the framework of the next MFF, a gender-budgeting approach across all pillars, funding instruments and budget lines and to ensure that they all actively contribute to gender equality goals at all stages; urges the Commission to further develop the current ‘tracking-only’ stage into fully fledged gender budgeting, embedding the gender equality perspective across the entire budget cycle, from planning and allocation to monitoring of financial resources, especially to address gaps in terms of collecting gender-disaggregated data and to clarify scoring criteria, including implementing a score category to capture budgetary interventions with a negative impact on gender equality, as this is currently lacking, and to ensure that it is done in time for the upcoming MFF 2028-2034; stresses that this requires setting clear priorities, commitments and indicators on gender equality via a targeted approach, as well as setting concrete criteria to measure progress;

89.79. Urges the Commission and the Member States to address intersectionality in all policies related to gender equality, acknowledging that GBV and discrimination are also compounded by factors such as age, race, ethnicity, minority or migration status,minority, disability, gender identity and sexual orientation, and that the intersection of these factors creates multiple and unique forms of discrimination that require targeted, context-specific measures;

90. Calls on the Commission to explicitly include trans people, especially trans women and girls, in all gender equality measures, to standardise access to legal gender recognition, and to develop specific actions against transphobia, especially in healthcare, employment and education;

93. Calls on the Commission to continue to ensure annual publication of reports on the implementation of the post-2025 Gender Equality Strategy and to present them to the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) in order to enable Parliament to contribute to the strategy’s scrutiny and oversight;