Samenvatting

Gender equality is one of the European Union’s (EU) core values. However, no EU Member State (MS) has achieved gender equality. The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) is the EU institute responsible for promoting gender equality. The aim of this dissertation was to find out how effective EIGE is in ensuring that the EU meets its gender equality objectives. This was done by answering the research question: “How effective is the European Institute for Gender Equality in Ensuring that the European Union meets its Gender Equality Objectives?”. The research was conducted by using extensive literature to establish the context of this research. In addition to this, interviews were conducted to gather primary data. Four standardized interviews with open-ended questions have been held with experts in the field of gender equality. Gender mainstreaming is the main strategy used by EIGE. The literature review showed that the points of criticism of gender mainstreaming are the threat posed by neo-liberalism, the differences among EU MS in understanding gender mainstreaming, the fact that it integrates women’s issues into other policies, the lack of a coherent goal of gender mainstreaming and the combination of women’s issues with other issues. The conducted interviews focused on the opinions of the interviewees on gender mainstreaming and EU gender policies. The interviews showed that the context in which gender mainstreaming is used is very important. Also, the differences in interpretation of gender mainstreaming are problematic for the effectiveness of EIGE. Additionally, the integration of women’s issues in other policies is not considered as a problem by the interviewees. Furthermore, the opinions on whether neo-liberalism is threat to gender equality differed among the interviews. Moreover, the interviewees agreed on that the status quo in terms of gender equality should change. Finally, it is hard to give more competence to the EU for gender issues because the EU MS are very different. The answer to the research question was that EIGE not sufficiently effective in ensuring that the EU meets its gender equality objectives. Further conclusions include that gender mainstreaming has the potential to transform the status quo, gender mainstreaming needs a clear goal, the context in which gender mainstreaming is used is important, it will be hard to give the EU more competence in the field of gender issues and women still have to adjust their lives to men which makes achieving gender
equality difficult. Based on the conclusion, this dissertation recommends that a clear goal of gender mainstreaming should be given, that gender mainstreaming should not be implemented from the EU level, more time should be spend on awareness raising, the neo-liberal view should be eliminated from social policies, gender mainstreaming should be used in combination with other gender equality approaches and one approach to gender mainstreaming should be used.