The concept of gender mainstreaming and why it (still) matters

Gender mainstreaming was established as the principal global strategy for gender equality at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. It is both a strategy and a set of instruments aimed at integrating gender equality concerns into policymaking – not a goal in itself but a means to ensure that law, policy and public funding contribute systematically to gender equality. To support its practical application, the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) has developed a toolkit mapping concrete tools onto four key stages of the policy cycle: defining policy interventions; planning implementation; implementation; and monitoring and evaluation.

Gender mainstreaming has constituted the EU's official policy approach to gender equality since the Amsterdam Treaty (1997). Today, it is firmly embedded in the EU Treaties and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Under Article 8 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the EU and its Member States must ensure that a gender equality perspective is integrated into their policymaking. This obligation encompasses both the protection of individual rights and the structural dimension of inequality such as the balanced representation of women at all levels. The EU pursues a twin-track approach combining mainstreaming across all policy sectors with specific positive action for women. The EU gender equality strategy 2026-2030, accompanied by a roadmap for women's rights, reaffirms this commitment.

Despite these commitments, evaluations of the 2020-2025 EU strategy for gender equality point to persistent gaps in implementation: gender mainstreaming remained limited across the full range of EU policy domains; only a very limited number of impact assessments produced during the 2019-2024 parliamentary term assessed the gender-related impacts. The methodology for tracking EU spending on gender equality requires further development.

EIGE's assessment of the state of play of gender equality in the European Parliament and national parliaments in EU Member States in 2023 identified significant scope for improvement. Benchmarking is increasingly used to promote transparency, accountability and the dissemination of good practice – within the EU (notably through EIGE's biennial reports and exchanges facilitated by the European Centre for Parliamentary Research and Documentation – ECPRD) and beyond (through initiatives such as the Inter Pares programme and the ParlAmericas parliamentary practices dashboard).

The broader context is increasingly challenging in view of a decline in the overall commitment to gender mainstreaming at Member State level – reflected in EIGE's gender mainstreaming indicator falling from 39 % of the maximum score in 2021 to 34 % in 2024 – and contestation regarding women's rights and gender equality policies.

Gender mainstreaming in the European Parliament

Parliament's gender mainstreaming policy rests on a series of resolutions, Bureau reports, gender action plans and committee-level action plans, and is supported by several political bodies and administrative structures as well as a gender mainstreaming network. Since 2019, Rule 249 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure requires the Bureau to adopt a gender action plan (EP GAP). The first EP GAP was adopted in 2020 and a renewed plan was adopted in October 2025. Both plans are accompanied by roadmaps for implementation.

Besides providing an outline of Parliament's gender mainstreaming structures and policy instruments, including an analysis of parliamentary committee action plans, the study takes a look at where Parliament stands today in terms of gender mainstreaming. In this respect, the analysis focuses on two dimensions: (i) incorporation of the gender perspective in Parliament's policymaking; and (ii) representation of women in the Parliament. On female representation, the study covers both the political and administrative side of the European Parliament. As well as looking at gender balance, it also covers measures to create a gender-sensitive working environment (including work-life balance measures, anti-harassment policies, and professional training), since both aspects are intrinsically linked.

Gender mainstreaming practices beyond the European Parliament

The study also reviews gender mainstreaming practices in other EU institutions and bodies (European Commission, Council of the EU, Committee of the Regions, European Economic and Social Committee and European Investment Bank) as well as national parliaments, based on an ECPRD survey conducted in February 2026 (with responses received from chambers in 25 EU Member States and 10 non-EU countries).