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08.01.2024

24.1.2024

Mr Johan Van Overtveldt

BRUSSELS

Subject: Opinion on Guidelines for the 2025 Budget -– Section III (2023/2220(BUI))

Dear Mr Chair,

Under the procedure referred to above, the Committee on AgricultureWomen's Rights and RuralGender DevelopmentEquality has been asked to submit an opinion to your committee. At its meeting of 28th29 November 2023, the committee decided to send the opinion in the form of a letter.

The Coordinators of the Committee on AgricultureWomen's Rights and RuralGender DevelopmentEquality adoptedconsidered the lettermatter onat 24thits meeting of 24 January 2024,2024. andAt that meeting, it decided to call on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions:suggestions into its motion for a resolution.

1. Underlines the uncertainties concerning the 2025 budget ceilings and possible flexibilities due to the MFF mid-term review negotiations ahead making it difficult to issue specific recommendations; stresses that the review should at least preserve an ambitious multiannual budget in Heading 3 and most importantly preserve or increase the CAP budget, given the challenges the EU agriculture is facing;

2. Highlights the central importance of the CAP to secure global food security and achieve greater EU production autonomy; recalls the fundamental role the CAP plays in the provision of affordable, safe and high-quality food as much as in ensuring the incomes of EU farmers, protecting the environment and preserving good agricultural conditions; insists on the importance of the CAP existing programmes continuity;

3. Emphasizes the estimated inflation induced losses of EUR 37 billion, or 10% for the period 2021-27, for the cluster Agriculture and Maritime policy (95% of which being covered by the EAGF and EAFRD) according to a realistic medium-inflation scenario in a recent study requested by the Committee on Budgets; is also concerned about the negative effects on farmers of increases in input prices; opposes strongly any proposals to re-allocate any pre-allocated funds from the CAP to other clusters as part of the MFF mid-term review;

4. Welcomes the decision to increase the agricultural reserve to respond to the crises in the agriculture sector while at the same time regrets that this was done without consulting the Parliament in its capacity of budgetary authority; Insists on the Parliament’s role in the use of the reserve; calls on the Commission to follow objective and transparent criteria in the allocation of these funds and to regularly report back on their use in order to continually improve it; calls on the Commission to ensure that sufficient funding will be available without prejudice to direct payments to farmers and, where appropriate, to explore the possibility of mobilising funds outside the CAP;

5. As a critical developing tool for rural areas, calls on Member States to increase the levels of support provided to young farmers and to improve their access conditions to land and credit;

6. Stresses the importance of research and innovation in the agri-food sector and the need to increase the budget for the Horizon research programme dedicated to agriculture.

As AGRI committee Chair, I would like to ask the BUDG committee to take due account of this opinion in its report.

Yours sincerely,

Norbert Lins

Robert Biedroń

SUGGESTIONS

A. whereas gender equality and the elimination of inequalities is one of the core values on which the European Union is founded and whereas the Union is committed to promoting gender equality and gender mainstreaming in all of its actions as enshrined in Article 8 TFEU;

B. whereas the European Parliament has repeatedly asked the Commission to promote and implement the use of gender mainstreaming, gender budgeting and gender impact assessments in all Union policy areas;

C. whereas gender equality in the Union has been particularly impacted by the multiple crises facing the Union, which women are disproportionately affected by, such as war and the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, an increase in gender-based and domestic violence, restrictions of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), backlashes against women’s rights, as well as the persistent gender pay gap;

D. whereas budgets are never gender neutral and therefore need to be established with the clear objective of achieving gender equality, anti-discrimination and the goal of reaching everyone and their specific needs, including women and girls in all their diversity, as well as promoting women’s economic empowerment, via a tangible commitment to gender mainstreaming;

E. whereas discrimination needs to be eradicated and effectively addressed by the Member States and the EU and whereas an increasing percentage of the EU budget, including the EU Structural Funds and investment in high-quality and accessible public care services, must be designed to create new, equal opportunities in the EU labour market including for female-led SMEs, while aiming to achieve a “equal carer- and equal-earner” model of society;

1. Underlines that a gender perspective must be integrated and evaluated in the budgetary cycle and in all programmes, at all stages, and regrets that despite repeated calls of the European Parliament, this objective still has not been achieved; calls for systematic and mandatory collection, reporting and evaluation of comparable gender-disaggregated data to enable mandatory gender impact assessments in all Union policy areas, in particular for a full breakdown of the scores within the gender equality methodology;

2. Stresses that a gender equality perspective and gender-related objectives should be integrated into all policy areas and EU programmes; reiterates therefore its call for the implementation of gender budgeting at all stages of the budgetary process as well as the identification of relevant budget lines to enable the effective monitoring of the EU budget’s contribution to gender equality and a gender-sensitive review of all programmes and spending;

3. Stresses the need to further develop the EU Commission gender tracking methodology, which should not just identify the actions with a gender impact in some EU programmes, but also track the overall funding volume dedicated to gender equality in the EU budget;

4. Reiterates the need to reinforce the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) with the necessary staff and budget to enable it to perform its mandated duties and to cope with a sharp rise of requests for technical assistance on gender mainstreaming; recalls that EIGE has a crucial role in sharing valuable knowledge on the situation of gender equality and women’s rights in the EU and expertise on policy, gender mainstreaming and gender sensitive analysis; recognises the value of EIGE’s annual report which allows Member States to delve into the underlying aspects which hinder gender equality; notes that EIGE faces ever increasing requests for its services and underlines that under-funding and under-staffing EIGE is inconsistent with the objectives and values of the Union; in addition, highlights that rectifying worrying trends raised by EIGE would help the wider European economy become more competitive, efficient and resilient; stresses the importance of making use of the existing tools developed by the EIGE such as its toolkit for gender budgeting in all stages of evaluation, implementation and monitoring in the European Structural and Investment Funds;

5. Regrets the lack of specific budget lines for measures dedicated to gender equality and stresses the importance of increasing the funding for preventing and combating gender-based violence within the DAPHNE strand, as well as gender equality and gender mainstreaming within the CERV programme; calls in particular for increased funding for women fleeing the war in Ukraine, who are at significant risk of violence; recalls the importance of having specific gender-related budget lines along with clear data on the allocated funding; reiterates that this should be the practice for all programmes which include gender equality related goals, such as ESF+ and calls for special attention to be paid to cyber violence against women in this and other related horizontal programmes;

6. Stresses the worrying and increasing backlash against gender equality, rule of law and women’s rights and the importance of EU instruments to raise awareness of and combat this situation; regrets that the Commission did not include a specific programme on gender equality in their budgetary proposal; repeats its concern at the interrelation between the attacks on the rule of law, democracy and human rights and the backlash on gender equality and women’s rights;

7. Calls on the Commission to increase the budget allocation to civil society organisations (CSO) within the existing programmes, especially those dealing with sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), including providing and facilitating access to safe and legal abortion and those working on combatting gender-based violence and providing support services for the victims, repeats its calls for the Commission to strengthen the rule of law and ensure that EU funds are not made available to any entity that is implicated in breaches of human rights, especially of minorities, and any breaches of the rule of law, which impact including women’s freedoms and fundamental rights, including and SRHR;

8. Stresses that gender equality concerns are largely missing from the green transition and digital transformation pillars of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, which represents a missed opportunity to effectively integrate gender equality into climate and environmental objectives.

ANNEX: ENTITIES OR PERSONS FROM WHOM THE RAPPORTEUR HAS RECEIVED INPUT