- “Over time, you see that the score zero star decreased, which is basically a result of the more information that we got over time to precisely assess whether the interventions supported by the EU budget contribute to gender or not. So if you indeed now look at the figures of the draft budget 2025, which were released in in June of this year, you see that the score decreased very much. We are still at 20%, so we still have a lot of progress to do to basically assess all interventions financed by the EU budget. But now we are also able to see the contributions to score one and score two respectively nine and 2% and also score zero. So all the interventions that have no bearing whatsoever on gender in monetary terms in total, if you look at the 23 figures. So score one and score two, we are at €47 billion. So it is not a small amount. It's a it's substantial but indeed it has increased over the years because of the ability we gained to better assess indeed the contributions of the EU interventions to to gender. Um, besides the the tracking of expenditures, there is another important element when we talk about gender and budget is reporting and precisely to know how the programs contributes in in real terms also to, to gender. And this is why in in a number of programs, we have also obligations to report indicators on a by disaggregating the figures by by sex in particular.”
Size of EU budget · Gender roles, equality and inclusion · Accounting and auditing of EU budget
- “So this is one of the novelty of the annual Management and Performance report of this year, where we have highlighted for the programs where we have this information and a number of examples where indeed we are disaggregating the figures. So if you see, for instance, the result and the humanitarian aid program, you see the figures in terms of female and male who received the support from the from the Union budget. And this is something that we will roll out now for for the next years. And again, depending on whether the information is available or not in the respective programs. Besides reporting, gender is also applied as an objective in in a number of programs. And if you indeed look at, for instance, cohesion policy, gender equality is an enabling condition. So this has indeed to be assessed at the beginning of the programming period. Member states have to propose action plans in the Common Agricultural Policy. Gender equality is also one of the objectives to increase participation of women in farming. Horizon Europe also requires the preparation of gender action plans. The IRF has also another type of obligations for member states to include in their plan how they promote gender equality, and and my colleague from Geneva will then go into more details on how this is applied in external action. Now, if if we look towards the towards the future, the first point is that to note that for the Commission, this is still a learning curve.”
Gender roles, equality and inclusion · EU Development & Humanitarian Aid · Accounting and auditing of EU budget
- “Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you very much for the invitation to to speak here today. I will I will start from the side of DG Birge to recall the overall framework that we have for tracking the EU budget expenditures contributing to to gender. And we will then go into the more details on how this is applied in a specific program and basically following the agreement in the interinstitutional framework of 2020. The Commission was invited to develop such a gender tracking methodology, and this was done for the first time three years ago with the methodology that you see here on screen with basically four scores, score zero, no contribution, score one. There is a contribution to to gender, but it is not the main intervention of the of the expenditure. And score two is basically the expenditure is specifically designed to contribute to gender objectives. These three scores have been developed basically following the OECD methodologies with the additions that you see at the bottom, which is score zero star, as we call it. Basically all those interventions where we did not or do not have any information about their contribution to gender or not. So this is more or less a categories where we put the unknowns. When you look at the development over the years of this methodology, you see that the the bulk of you see that the bulk of the contribution was the score zero star when we started in the draft budget 2023. The main reason being that at the time we still had no information about the EU budget interventions.”
Size of EU budget · Gender roles, equality and inclusion · Accounting and auditing of EU budget
- “So the integration of gender in these MFF is new. So we have received in 2021 recommendation from the European Court of Auditors, which has helped us build this gender dimension in the budget. But still more remains to be done. So one of the elements is basically to train also the commission officials implementing all the programmes. And for that purpose we have launched a partnership with the European Institute of of Florence to do trainings on gender budgeting to the various financial officers in the Commission. And then most importantly is for the next MFF. We also need to think how to embed gender in the next MFF. This is something that Commissioner Seraphin mentioned during his hearing. Um, in the in the Parliament recently, and also because we have now a new legal obligations stemming from the recast of the financial regulation, which is indeed that programmes and activities should, where feasible and appropriate, be implemented, taking into account the principle of gender equality and in accordance with an appropriate gender mainstreaming methodology. So there are two obligations in this in this paragraph. And then if you look at the second obligation, is that indeed we will continue to break down indicators, uh, by, by gender, and that we will indeed continue to provide sex disaggregated figures in the future. So all of this will indeed have to be embedded in the in the next MFF. I will stop here and pass the floor to my colleague.”
Size of EU budget · Gender roles, equality and inclusion
- “Thank you very much for for the questions. And I will maybe, maybe start to address the question on the methodology itself, which was raised by a number of you and the reliability of the of the data. Um, the first point maybe to, to note is that this methodology was introduced after the programme regulations were adopted. So this was indeed embedded ex-post into the programmes. So there is in most of the programs that we have currently in the budget. There is no reference to gender tracking to gender objectives because those were agreed in 21 and we came after with the methodologies to track expenditure. So everything that we do here is ad hoc. It's a artisanal, if you can say so in a sense, because we have no legal framework to to do it in the first place. So that's an important point to mention. This has obviously repercussions on our ability to basically get the data we need. So when we you had this, this this question on the different management modes. And this is indeed very relevant. The we have data in shared management. For instance. We do have data CPR for cohesion policy. We do have data because those were indeed identified in the programmes of the member states. You mentioned indirect measurements. No we don't, because this requires to enforce in the agreements that we signed with the implementing partners, that they are obliged to collect data on gender. And we don't have legal grounds to do this on direct management.”
Size of EU budget · Gender roles, equality and inclusion · Conditions to access EU budget
- “We are applying the methodology of the of the OCD, which does not have such negative scores. And yes, in the future I think this was also mentioned. Everything that we will that the Commission will propose in terms of next program will be accompanied by an impact assessment. And the impact assessment methodology of the Commission includes an obligation to assess the gender dimension of of the future program. So this will be assessed ex-ante indeed in the impact assessment. To what extent this contributes or not. But yes, again this is also a policy debate for for the future and maybe coming back on the methodologies and data collection. One important dimension not to lose sight of is that simplicity, administrative burden is also to be taken into account. And for the moment we indeed collect those data within the Commission. But this also has repercussions on the recipients of EU funds, which then need to provide those data to the Commission. So all of this will have to be assessed and will have to be part of the pictures to get to get the policy choice right. Um, then maybe coming back to additional, uh, uh, points that you mentioned. Indeed, we were not aware of this example on the metro station, but my my guess is that it might refer to a situations when one city builds a metro station is not that gender means that you need to finance a metro line instead of a road. But if you indeed decide to finance a metro line is to pay attention to where you put the stops of your metro lines.”
Size of EU budget · Gender roles, equality and inclusion
- “Again, this relies on the DGS doing it themselves, and we are basically enforcing it from the side of DG, with all DGS implementing direct, directly managed programs so that whenever they do work programs or launch calls for proposals, that they do indeed collect figures on, on gender. But again, all of this is ad hoc. Um, on so we have to learn from this because we have first, no uniform methodologies to track gender. And if we indeed need to do better in the future, we will have to to start as of now. Um, now, the another important dimension that you mentioned is the timing. And yes, everything we do now is purely ex-post reporting. And so programs are being implemented and then we collect the data and this is exposed. We have no influence on the way the programs spend their money on gender, except if the objectives of the program reflect a gender dimension, which is not the case except in very few of them. So then again, this is a reflection for the future you, as co-legislators will need to have is how you want to embed gender equality in the objective of the program. That can be of a qualitative nature. So but this is for now not the case in the programs. And so this is this ex-ante approach that indeed will have to come in the debate for the, for the future. And, but right now we don't have it. You also mentioned important questions on on negative impacts.”
Transparency requirements of EU institutions · Size of EU budget · Gender roles, equality and inclusion
- “So, for instance, to make sure that they are close to schools, to creche, so that indeed it helps. From that perspective, the gender dimension is not I don't think it's about prioritizing metro over other roads. Um, then maybe the reacting indeed to what the colleagues from the OECD said, and we are very grateful for all the input. Indeed, we always get from the from the OECD, and we will certainly continue to learn from also what the members of the OECD are doing. But that's also one important difference is that the EU budget in its composition is very different than a national budget. So in the EU budget, it's an investment budget that is basically agreed more or less in in the main objectives as part of the MFF. So over a long period of time, and our ability to change the priorities on an annual basis are very much limited because again, the EU budget is very specific and national budget. The composition is very different. You finance a lot about education, social security, and all of this gives you tools to embed gender equality in our in our in a different way than what we can do at European level. So there are limitations to how far we can go in fully transposing the OECD approach into the Union. But we will obviously continue to very much follow their follow their advice.Thank you very much.”
Own EU resources · Size of EU budget · Gender roles, equality and inclusion