Party Political Struggles About Gender and Austerity in the European Parliament

The EU’s crisis response as well as new post-crisis economic governance framework has been criticized for being gendered, de-politicized and de-democratized. One of the main criticisms has concerned the focus on austerity as well as the constitutionalization of austerity through the strengthened fiscal rules. Although the effects of austerity and the very assumptions on which it as policy are based are gendered, gender and other equalities have been mainly excluded from debates about these policies. This paper focuses on party political struggles about austerity and the role of gender therein in the European Parliament’s debates of the development and implementation of the EU’s post-crisis new economic governance. Although the European Parliament has had a very limited official role in the adoption and implementation of the new economic governance regime, it nevertheless could play a role in challenging the EU’s gendered austerity policies through questioning hegemonic economic policies and ideas and proposing more gender-sensitive alternatives. The paper asks, how and with what effects the European Parliament – often seen as a gender equal actor – and its political groups have been able to politicize the gendered impacts of austerity as well as to propose more equal and inclusive alternatives. The main research questions are the following: How is austerity rhetorically defended and challenged by the EP’s political groups? What role does gender play in the groups’ discourses and intra-and inter-group conflicts around austerity? What is the significance of these political conflicts for the EP’s possibilities to contest gendered austerity policies? The paper is based on broad documentary material covering the political groups’ documents, EP reports and amendments in relevant reports in ECON and EMPL committees, and EP debates, as well as on interviews with MEPs and group staff.