Soft, Technical and Path-Dependent: Institutionalising Gender Budgeting in the EU Finances

Abstract

Gender budgeting has become popular in gender equality policy and public financial management. Although the European Union (EU) is committed to integrating a gender perspective into all its activities, gender equality considerations have not been properly integrated into the EU budget. This article investigates the institutionalisation of a gender perspective in the EU budget under the EU 2021–2027 Multiannual Financial Framework and Ursula von der Leyen's first Commission presidency. The article asks: (1) How did gender equality emerge as a priority for the budgeting process of the EU and with what outcomes? (2) What are the possibilities and constraints for institutionalising gender budgeting in the EU budget? (3) How is gender budgeting understood at the EU level, and what is the transformational potential of the approach adopted so far? The article is based on interviews with key actors and extensive document data and draws on theories of policy change, with a focus on policy entrepreneurs and new institutionalisms. Studying recent efforts to integrate gender perspectives into the EU budget enables us to reflect on the advancement of gender equality within a contested EU policy field that has received less attention from gender scholars than others. The case of gender budgeting also provides a new lens on timely scholarly debates about policy change in the EU budget during the negotiations on the next Multiannual Financial Framework. The article shows that, despite steps forward thanks to dedicated policy entrepreneurs, ideational resistance, institutional constraints, and path dependencies led to a soft, technical gender budgeting approach focused on ex post knowledge production rather than transforming the EU budget to make it better suited to promoting equality.