Radical Right Populists at our Table. Unpolitics in the Council of the EU and the case of Gender+ Equality

Radical right populist (RRP) governments have increasingly challenged one of the European Union (EU)’s core values: gender+ equality. While their visible attacks within the European Parliament are well documented, their disruptive role in the Council of the EU (CEU) remains understudied. This paper examines how RRP governments import highly conflictual positions into an institutional arena that has traditionally relied on consensus-seeking, discretion, and trust in both formal and informal rules. By focusing on the CEU, we reveal how opposition to gender+ equality becomes both a prime target and a test-case for understanding the broader implications of RRP’ strategies. The analysis addresses three interrelated questions: (1) What formal and informal strategies do RRP governments employ to oppose gender+ equality within the Council? (2) How do other actors—rotating Presidencies, national delegations, and Council services—respond to such tactics? (3) What are the consequences for the functioning of the Council and for EU gender+ equality policies more broadly? We draw on a mixed-method approach combining three types of data: CEU primary sources (2009–2024), including member states’ statements and presidency conclusions; Agence Europe news briefs that track conflicts related to gender+ equality; and a series of interviews with policy actors involved in CEU negotiations. Our findings show that RRP governments mobilise a wide range of strategies, from open obstruction to more subtle discursive resistance, and that these interventions disrupt not only specific policy initiatives but also the very routines and norms sustaining CEU decision-making. By highlighting the symbolic salience of gender+ equality in RRP ideology, we argue that the CEU equality filière has become a laboratory where confrontational “unpolitics” (Taggart, 2018) are experimented with and gradually normalised. This raises a crucial question for gender studies and EU research alike: is gender+ equality an exceptional battleground, or does it function as the entry point through which RRPs reconfigure institutional practices across the EU? In this way, our case study focused on the CEU provides a lens to explore how anti-gender politics reshape both EU gender+ equality policies and EU governance.