The institutionalization of the gender equality took a step further within the EU. Ahead of the upcoming vote on the report on Gender Equality in EU's Foreign and Security Policy, led by the European Parliament Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) and the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET), the EU Parliament launched the research study on “A Feminist Foreign Policy for the European Union”. Written by the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy (CFFP) and commissioned by the Greens/EFA, the study gives a detailed overview of the status-quo of feminist foreign policies in the world and provides concrete steps aimed at advancing a feminist approach to the EU’s external action. Fernando Aguiar, Strategic Adviser on Conflict and EU Politics, argued that:
“Concretely, the EU's journey towards gender mainstreaming has enabled significant innovations in international peace and security - for example, gender equality and gender perspective have systematically made its way into EU`s external action discourse through its development policies; the inclusion of women`s civil society in EU deliberations is yet another example; and the recent launching of the Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025, welcomingly included intersectional perspectives on gender. However, many structural challenges still remain in advancing policies on gender equality and women`s empowerment within the EU. For instance, a big challenge for the EU would be to shift dominant narratives around gender and gender equality, which ignores the "power relationships between gender" and reproduces a binary definition of the term, which is based on stereotypical ideas of women and men. This flawed understanding of gender and gender equality, and the failure to recognize gendered drivers of conflict and stability, have had impacts on EU policies, which has consequently led to sometimes flawed initiatives on the ground. The success of the WPS agenda in the EU depends on the existence of a coherent and unified approach to gender equality amongst all EU system, with a concrete action plan, greater resources allocated, and enhanced representation and inclusion within all sectors.”
The FEMM Committee will vote on the report next Thursday July 16 and the indicative plenary sitting date is schedule for 14 September.