“The penal response to gender-based violence needs to be complemented with a fully-fledged strategy of investments in other sectors, such as education, healthcare, transport, and urban planning.”
Timed to coincide with the week of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, the Gender Mainstreaming and Budgeting project of the European University Institute organised the workshop ‘The costs of gender-based violence and the gender budgeting response.’
The workshop brought together civil servants from Spain, Greece, Romania, Cyprus, Italy, Germany, and France, providing them with an opportunity to learn about prevention strategies and responses to gender-based violence from academic and civil society experts.
Members of the European Parliament, who were in Strasbourg to approve the new College of Commissioners, also participated in the event. They discussed gender budgeting and reflected on the recent adoption of the European Directive on Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence in May 2024.
Professor Costanza Hermanin, coordinator of the project team at the Robert Schuman Centre and the Florence School of Transnational Governance, expressed her satisfaction with the workshop’s impact:
“We contributed to outlining how the penal response to gender-based violence needs to be complemented with a fully-fledged strategy of investments across various sectors. The contributions of a Vice-President of the European Parliament, the Chair of the Gender Equality Committee, and the MEP responsible for institutionalising gender budgeting in the EU ensured that this perspective was heard.”
She also stated: “We were able to gather some of the brightest personalities working on this matter, such as Janet Weitch, Chair of the UK Women’s Budget Group – the most authoritative organisation in the field – Francesca Montagna from the Group of Independent Experts on Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO), Alessandra Pauncz from the European Network for the Work with Perpetrators of Domestic Violence, and Professors Mathias Moschel and Michael Flood.”
The Gender Mainstreaming and Budgeting project at the EUI is implemented in partnership with the French agency Expertise France and is funded by the European Union’s Directorate-General for Structural Reforms. The project was launched in October 2022, with an opening conference in Florence.
In March 2023, the project held an online training on Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) under the guidance of Professor Hermanin.