Filtering Out, Filtering In What Place for Gender in European Economic Plans?

The Lisbon Strategy and its successor Europe 2020 were high-level macroeconomic growth and productivity strategies adopted by the European Council to position the European Union (EU) as a global economic power. At the Lisbon European Council meeting in 2000, the EU heads of state and government declared an ambition ‘to become the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion' (European Council 2000, 2). In delivering on this strategic goal, the European Council called for an overall strategy that addressed three areas—moving to a digital knowledge-based economy to deliver growth, competitiveness, and jobs; modernising the European social model, through ‘investing in people' and ‘delivering an active welfare state'; and applying macro-economic measures supportive of economic growth (European Council 2000, 2). Of these, modernising the European social model addressed the intersection of economic and social policy where gender equality was presented in its most explicit form. Action in four areas was targeted: education and training for a knowledge society, delivering an active employment policy, modernising social protections, and promoting social inclusion. Each area had specific actions, concrete targets, and policy development tasks. In terms of gender equality, the specific headline measures sought an increase in the female employment rate from an average of 51 per cent to over 60 per cent, an increase in childcare provision, reduction of occupational segregation, and further efforts to reconcile working and family life. The policy on which these ambitious targets were to be delivered was a revamped European Employment Strategy (EES), involving significant labour market reforms in many EU member states, and governed at the European level through a new policy tool, the voluntary Open Method of Coordination (OMC). The indications were that gender equality was finally embedded in core EU concerns.