Gendered aspects of EU migration and asylum policy: the role of populist governments

Zaun and Ripoll Servent (2023), looking into the case of intra-EU refugee distribution, demonstrate how populist governments diverge from mainstream governments during EU negotiations and how these dynamics affect EU policymaking and outcomes. Building on the ‘unpolitics’ theoretical framework, this contribution aims to examine the extent of ‘unpolitics’ strategies used by populist governments in adjacent policy areas that are considered less ‘salient’ and more ‘bureaucratic’. Embracing gender mainstreaming in the late 1990s, the EU affirmed its commitment to integrate ‘’a gender perspective’’ into its policies. One area in which the EU has failed to systematically introduce gender sensitive approaches is migration and asylum policies. How do populist governments’ presence challenge gender policies and gender mainstreaming in EU’s migration and asylum policy? This article will examine how populist actors position themselves in relation to the overlapping areas of the EU’s gender equality norms and asylum policies, and how their strategies differ from mainstream governments. I will explore whether ‘unpolitics’ strategies are present and, if so, how they are manifested in the Council negotiations regarding the integration of ‘gender’ in EU’s asylum policy.