EIGE’s cooperation with its stakeholders

European Commission

EIGE closely coordinates its activities with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (DG JUST). DG JUST is also represented on the Institute’s Management Board.

The Institute regularly contributes to the work of the European Commission, by providing data, expertise and evidence, as well as participating in the meetings of various working groups organised by the Commission.

As gender equality is a concern in all EU policy areas, EIGE also cooperates with other departments of the European Commission. This cooperation is guided by the political priorities of the European Union and EIGE’s Single Programming Document.

European Parliament

EIGE’s main cooperation partner at the European Parliament is the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM committee). EIGE regularly provides and presents gender equality data and evidence to the European Parliament for their reports, hearings and committee meetings.

In order to share data and find synergies, EIGE also works together with other committees, departments and services of the European Parliament.

Council of the European Union

EIGE supports the work of the Council by providing data and evidence for various Council preparatory body meetings, such as Social Questions working party, Law Enforcement working party and Fundamental Rights, Citizen Rights and Free Movement of Persons working party.

The Council is an essential EU decision-maker and therefore crucial for keeping gender equality in focus in all policies of the European Union. The Council is presided by the rotating Presidencies.

Upon request of the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union, EIGE prepares a report to monitor the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action in a selected area of concern or shorter research notes on selected areas.

EIGE can also assist the Presidencies by providing:

• capacity building sessions for civil servants
• expertise for high-level conferences and other events
• communication support.

EU Agencies and other bodies

EIGE coordinates and cooperates with other European Union agencies, especially the Fundamental Rights Agency and Eurofound.

We are also part of the European Union Justice and Home Affairs Agencies Network to ensure that the EU is well equipped to deal with security, justice, gender equality and fundamental rights.

In order to carry out our work, we need high-quality and comparable data. Therefore, we work closely with EUROSTAT to analyse their data, and incorporate it into EIGE’s Gender Statistics Database. EIGE also  provides gender expertise at their working meetings.

The European Economic and Social Committee is another important partner for EIGE. Together we ensure that gender equality is taken into account in different policy areas that the Committee works with.

EIGE provides expertise to national governments, with comparative data on gender equality, toolkits and good practices to support gender-sensitive policies. Our main partners in the Member States are ministry departments responsible for gender equality policies.

We also work with other ministries, national parliaments and other governmental bodies, and strengthens the gender perspective in their policy areas. For example, EIGE cooperates with ministries of justice and home affairs on topics around gender-based violence. EIGE has also collaborated with national parliaments, encouraging them to use our gender-sensitive parliaments toolkit.

EIGE usually visits up to five EU countries per year. These visits to Member States are designed to bring specific gender equality expertise into national level discussions on gender equality.

EIGE also collaborates with EU pre-accession countries, by supporting responsible authorities in their efforts to develop gender equality policies aligned with EU priorities.

EIGE cooperates with international actors working on gender equality. We share expertise and cooperate on dissemination efforts. Importantly, we also try to avoid duplication of research by coordinating our work.

We collaborate closely with the gender units or departments of the following international organisations:

• Council of Europe
• UN WOMEN
• International Labour Organisation (ILO)
• Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
• Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD).

EIGE works with certain EU-level civil society organisation networks to facilitate the inclusion of the civil society perspective into EIGE’s work. Each year, EIGE meets its key civil society partners to agree on an annual action plan and targeted communication efforts. These organisations include:

• European Women’s Lobby
• Social Platform
• MenEngage Network

EIGE also works with social partners to integrate different perspectives from business and trade unions into our work and to promote gender equality in the labour market. At the EU level, EIGE cooperates with BusinessEurope, ETUC, CEEP, SME United and ETUCE.