Strong Institutions, weak Outcomes? Gender Mainstreaming in the National Recovery and Resilience Plans of Austria and Belgium

The EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) aimed to steer post-pandemic recovery and accelerate the green and digital transitions. Yet its regulation offered only a weak, non- binding mandate for gender mainstreaming. While this limited provision suggests uneven implementation of gender equality objectives, it remains unclear to what extent and how member states especially those with strong domestic equality frameworks implemented gender mainstreaming within the plans. This paper compares Austria and Belgium - two countries with advanced infrastructures for gender mainstreaming - through document analysis of their National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) and elite interviews at national and EU levels. Austria has one of Europe’s most institutionalized gender budgeting systems, constitu- tionally embedded since 2009 and integrated into performance management. Each ministry must define gender objectives in the federal budget, coordinated through interministerial mechanisms. However, this apparatus intersected only loosely with the RRF process: while line ministries provided bottom-up input, the Ministry of Finance led drafting - unlinked to the national gender budgeting framework. Gender considerations surfaced sporadically but remained fragmented and peripheral. Belgium, by contrast, anchors gender mainstreaming in a 2007 law and the Institute for the Equality of Women and Men. The Institute conducted a gender-impact assessment estimating that one-fifth of the potential projects would benefit gender equality. Yet the exercise came late - after federal and regional projects were already (pre)selected - and had limited influence on priorities at a stage where partisan negotiations largely governed allocation decisions.