On discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2024, Section III – Commission

OPINION

The Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality calls on the Committee on Budgetary Control, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following into its motion for a resolution:

A. whereas gender equality is a founding value of the Union and the Union is committed to promoting equality in all activities under Article 8 TFEU, establishing gender mainstreaming; whereas budgets are not gender neutral and must be drawn up and discharged with the objective of gender equality;

B. whereas Parliament has repeatedly called on the Commission to promote and implement gender mainstreaming, including gender budgeting and gender impact assessments, across all Union policies;

C. whereas the Commission has not yet analysed the appropriateness of proposing a percentage of the EU budget to support gender equality;

1. Acknowledges the Union’s commitment to gender mainstreaming and improving the methodology for tracking gender expenditure; regrets that the Commission’s methodology remains insufficient, as it does not capture negative effects and leaves uncertainty 20% of the time regarding its gender impact; calls on the Commission to improve the methodology and track negative impacts;

2. Welcomes the update of the better regulation guidelines and toolbox; regrets the lack of progress in conducting gender analyses of needs and impacts for EU funding programmes; calls on the Commission to execute such analyses consistently; instructs it to begin the impact assessment of the next MFF, including gender analyses;

3. Notes that information on the EU budget’s gender impact remains insufficient; highlights shortcomings in manual collection, reporting and evaluation of gender-disaggregated data; calls on the Commission to improve data quality;

4. Calls on the Commission to analyse what percentage of the EU budget should support gender equality; further calls for objectives and performance indicators in all future legislation, including the next MFF.