The Policy-Making Context of the Resolution

The policy-making context of the studied resolution exhibits some peculiarities. First, the EU decision-making process in the areas of foreign and security policies is different compared to most other policy areas in the EU. While the Council, consisting of Ministers from the Member States, and the ep are co-legislators in most policy areas, and agreement between the two institutions is required for a decision, the Council is the sole legislator on external affairs issues. The ep can give its opinion to the Council, but the Council can decide to ignore it. Hence, the resolution issued was non-binding.

Second, the resolution in focus in this study was launched as an own initiative report. An own initiative report means that the ep signals that it would like to see a legislative proposal on the issue. As such, it is not part of the EU’s formal decision-making procedures. The non-binding and non-formal nature of the resolution could be argued to make it less important to the ep, thus also making it less compelling for political groups to invest resources in strengthening or opposing a proposed text. At the same time, many both within the ep and outside of it view resolutions on own initiative reports “as a potential tool of agenda setting for the ep, noting that they often ‘pave the way for new legislative proposals’ and serve as a tool for mep s ‘to show their general interest, their attention to a given issue, or their willingness to shape the policy agenda’” (Kreppel & Webb 2019: 385). Acting as a promoter of new ideas and initiatives, within the EU institutions and to Member States, is today a major task for the ep (Kreppel and Webb 2019). Therefore, there are strong reasons to expect political groups to participate actively also in negotiation processes on non-binding resolutions.

Third, the resolution was handled by two committees in the ep – since it concerned both gender equality and foreign affairs. The Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (femm) became the leading committee in the handling of the initiative, with the Committee on Foreign Affairs (afet) as associated committee. It is also important to note that membership in the femm committee is “voluntary”, meaning it does not count against the requirement that each mep needs to be a member of two committees. As a result, it is most often only those who are genuinely interested in the topics covered by femm who become members (for an overview of femm and the pros and cons of its status as a “voluntary” committee, see Ahrens 2016).

Most of the ep’s legislative work takes place within the committees. This is also where most substantial conflicts are resolved (Laloux & Pennetreau 2019). Still, even though the plenary debates in the ep to a large extent can be seen as symbolic, “plenary debates are an important forum for mep s to communicate on their positions” (Laloux & Pennetreau 2019: 87). The ep is frequently viewed as “the main public forum in EU legislative decision-making, and therefore the place to bring politics into the decision-making process” (ibid.).

The European Parliament and Gender Politics

In the last decade or so, there has been a surge of interest in the gender politics of the ep and in the debates within the ep on gender-related issues among scholars. The ep has often been portrayed as a vanguard in its actions for gender equality, being described as a “strong supporter for gender justice” (van der Vleuten 2019: 49) and a “real champion for gender equality” (Locher 2012: 68). In recent years, however, forces opposing gender equality have gained ground, following the increasing influence of populist radical right parties in Europe and within the ep (Verloo & Paternotte 2018, Berthet 2022b). Though there is still a broad majority that defends progressive positions, there is today much more contestation of feminist-inspired thinking. The ep is no longer a uniform, gender-friendly institution (Berthet & Kantola 2021, Berthet 2022a, b).

The literature on gender and the ep has largely focused on conflicts and contestation between and within the ep’s main political actors – its political groups – and on how these conflicts have been played out in different parliamentary committees (Berthet 2022a, b, Elomäki & Ahrens 2022, Elomäki & Kantola 2022, Kantola & Rolandsen-Agustin 2016, Luhiste & Kenny 2016, Sawer 2020). Gender equality has, it is argued, become increasingly polarized on the left-right scale (Elomäki 2021, Elomäki & Ahrens 2022). The Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats group (s&d), the Green/European Free Alliance political group (efa), and the Left group (gue/ngl) tend to embrace feminist ideas. The Christian Democratic European Peoples’ Party group (epp) is more conservative while the liberal political group Renew Europe (formerly alde) takes a middle ground. The Euroskeptic radical right political groups, the European Conservatives and Reformist group (ecr) and the Identity and Democracy group (id), oppose gender equality in votes as well as discursively (Elomäki 2021).

In terms of size, epp is the biggest group (176 mep s), followed by the s&d (144), Renew Europe (101), The Greens/efa (72), ecr and id (64 mep s each) and gue/ngl (38). There is also a small number of non-aligned mep s (46). Considering the political groups’ number of mep s and their stances on gender issues, the epp has a crucial role. Elomäki and Ahrens (2022: 331) argue that: “In the ep’s negotiation culture, where size matters, the ambiguous position of the epp as the biggest group affects outcomes.” In their study on gender mainstreaming in the ep, they found that: “The strength of the opposition depended on the committee and issue, with the epp sometimes taking a supportive and sometimes an opposing stance” (Elomäki & Ahrens 2022: 332). The epp is also more internally split on these issues than other groups (ibid.).

The literature also emphasizes the role of informal institutions in groups and committees (Elomäki & Ahrens 2022). These studies have documented the positions and activities of the political groups and how they frame gender issues in a large number of issue-areas, including gender mainstreaming (Ahrens 2019, Elomäki & Ahrens 2022), violence against women (Berthet 2022a), inclusion of gender in the ep’s Covid-response (Elomäki & Kantola 2022), abortion (Berthet 2022b) and economic governance (Elomäki 2021). Authors analyze the strategies utilized by political groups, with a strong focus on types of arguments and framing. Some studies have also specifically analyzed the strategies of ep political groups when opposing gender equality issues. Strategies range from direct opposition, rejecting proposals that promote increased equality, to indirect opposition, for example, by embedding opposition to gender equality in Euroskepticism and subsidiarity debates (Kantola & Lombardo 2021a). Sometimes strategic silence is used, omitting or not explicitly discussing gender in relation to the policy in question. This strategy has been prevalent within the ep’s economic governance policies (Elomäki 2019).

Theoretically and methodologically, many of the scholars examining the ep’s gendered activities use discursive approaches, sometimes linked to Feminist Institutionalism (fi). They argue that “it is useful to conceptualize ep decision-making processes as an on-going discourse and an on-going construction of policy problems and solutions in the form of frames” (Ahrens 2019: 3). A discursive approach is also considered a useful way to analyze institutional change (Berthet & Kantola 2021). fi examines i.a. how gender shapes the work of political institutions and emphasizes the interaction between formal and informal institutions (Ahrens & Kantola 2022).

Existing accounts of discursive gender struggles across issue-areas demonstrate varying degrees of success for actors that try to protect or advance gender equality. It seems as if they fight an uphill battle on economic issues, where there are strong competing norms, while they are more successful on social, “soft” issues (Elomäki 2021). When overarching democratic values are seen to be threatened, the majority of the political groups tend to rally around gender equality (Berthet 2022b). Discursive approaches are well-suited in order to provide insights into existing lines of conflict and norm resistance. Adding a focus on negotiations, and the negotiating actors, we aim to contribute to the literature on the ep and gender politics with a focus on the process and its result.

Norm Negotiations and Norm Contestation

The norm development process analyzed here is interpreted as a negotiation process. While there are certainly elements of deliberation and normative suasion involved in the process, we want to emphasize its strategic character. The interaction is between negotiating actors – primarily political groups in the ep – with both conflicting and shared interests. Populist radical right parties were ideologically opposed to the idea of a gender-driven foreign policy. But also within the large majority of political groups that shared the conviction that gender equality should be integrated into EU foreign policy there was disagreement on what aspects to emphasize or downplay and how this should be done. These conflictual elements were mainly resolved by text negotiations (Elgström 2000: 461) where norms are defined and developed through debates about wordings and formulations. In any legal text, norms have to be interpreted in the concrete policy context. This creates opportunities for norm opponents to influence the impact of the norm by acting for, for example, vague definitions and fuzzy language, limited application areas and numerous exceptions. Norm opponents may also make use of competing norms that are accepted in the relevant institutional context, including references to e.g. effectiveness or subsidiarity (Elgström 2005: 33-34).

The negotiations analyzed in this article are both parliamentary and international (in the sense that mep s come from different countries and that attention has to be paid to decisions in the Council, consisting of state actors). This means that attention must be paid to institutional features (e.g., the nature and characteristics of parliamentary debates and types of decisions) but also to the interplay with national concerns, important not least in the field of security policy.

In the negotiation literature, a distinction is often made between integrative and distributive negotiations (Lax & Sebenius 1986, cf. Dür & Mateo 2010, Elgström & Jönsson 2000, Hopmann 1996). While distributive negotiations are characterized by every participant’s insistence on realizing his or her own goals and on getting as much as possible for him- or herself (“claiming value” in the parlance of Lax & Sebenius 1986), integrative negotiations focus on Pareto-optimal solutions, where none of the participants is worse off because of the deal (“creating value”). Distributive negotiations are perceived to involve manipulative tactics, firm commitments and conflictual language. Integrative negotiations are associated with creativity and a joint search for new, inventive solutions, and with the sharing of information (Elgström & Jönsson 2000: 685). One strategy is to expand the number of issues to negotiate in order to increase the possibility for mutual concessions (“expanding the pie”) (Hopmann 1996: 190-194). Elements of integrative and distributive negotiations can occur simultaneously in negotiation processes. This distinction will in this article be used when analyzing the nature of the ep negotiation processes on gender equality, together with an examination of the verbal strategies utilized by the negotiating actors. We thus refer both to rational behavior in terms of negotiation strategies and to discourses as an element of bargaining. We argue that narratives and discourses can be utilized strategically (Miskimmon et al. 2013, Naurin 2010, Roselle et al. 2014), while discourse analysis is a useful tool for revealing actor strategies, verbal as well as behavioral.

While earlier literature on norms often described new norms as simply accepted or rejected, and when accepted as developed through emulation or imitation (e.g., Checkel 1997, Florini 1996), more recent literature has emphasized how norms often are translated or adapted to the context (e.g., Acharya 2004, Björkdahl et al. 2015, Stimmer & Wisken 2019). As stated by Elgström (2000: 458): “This translation process involves compromises and shared as well as competing objectives: it is a negotiation process.”

Stimmer and Wisken (2019: 516) define norms as “intersubjective constructs [which] provide a reference point for what actions members of a community expect or view as acceptable behavior in a given situation.” Norm contestation involves “disputes about the meaning, validity and applicability of norms” (ibid., p. 517). Resistance to (new) norms can be expressed in different ways. A distinction can be made between resistance during the actual negotiation process, often in the form of text negotiations, and resistance in the implementation stage (Elgström 2000). This is in line with the distinction made in the norm contestation literature, between discursive and behavioral contestation (Stimmer & Wisken 2019, True & Wiener 2019). Discursive contestation is “contestation by means of discourse” while behavioral contestation is “contestation by means of actions that affect implementation” (Stimmer & Wisken 2019: 516). The discursive element of political struggles over gender policy in the European Parliament has already been emphasized by several scholars (i.a. Berthet 2022a, b, Berthet & Kantola 2021, Elomäki & Ahrens 2022).

Explaining the Lack of Contestation in the ep Negotiations: Three Approaches

In this article we find that discursive text negotiations in the ep on the introduction of a gender-transformative approach in the EU’s foreign and security policy are characterized by a low level of contestation. Also, the end result, the ep resolution, must be considered radical in its promotion of a gender-transformative approach. In our view, this is surprising considering the relatively high level of politicization of gender-related issues in the EU at large and the prominence of other norms, such as sovereignty, in the area of foreign and security policy. We therefore need to look at potential explanations of why this is the case. A review of fpa literature and works on EU gender policy-making leads us to propose three types of explanations.

Our first approach underlines the potentially important role played by coalitions of dedicated individual gender norm entrepreneurs, that is, “actors strongly committed to a certain norm and ready to actively promote this norm to shape the behaviour of others” (Rosén Sundström & Elgström 2019: 3; cf. Finnemore & Sikkink 1998). Based on Holli (2008), Guerrina and Wright (2016: 296) state that “feminist constellations play a crucial role in ensuring that women’s interests are represented in policy-making processes” and argue that the impact of networks of feminist actors in the EU “should not be underestimated” (ibid, p. 297). Such “feminist triangles” (Holli 2008) may consist of femocrats (bureaucrats motivated to fight for feminist ideals), civil society representatives and epistemic community experts (professionals with an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge) (ibid., p. 296). The entrepreneurial role of committed feminist actors within EU institutions has been well documented in the areas of social and welfare policy (ibid., p. 297). We submit that the potential existence of feminist networks in the ep decision-making process may result in the initial framing of the proposal for gender equality in EU foreign and security policy in progressive terms. The actor who is the first to introduce a text proposal in negotiations is claimed to have a huge advantage (Elgström 1992: 28). Therefore, feminist coalitions are likely to exert influence also at subsequent stages of the process, limiting the role played by norm-contesting actors.

Our second approach refers to the institutional set-up of ep decision-making. We adopt a broad institutionalist approach, concentrating on the ways in which institutions (e.g., agenda-shaping rules, decision-making procedures, rules on rights of participation and initiative) form a political environment for institutional actors. Institutions provide a framework within which actors interact, shape their expectations and limit what alternatives they perceive as possible (Cf. Aspinwall & Schneider 2000, de la Porte & Natali 2018, Minto & Lut 2018). Institutional features and procedures combine with preferences to produce outcome, privilege certain actors and proscribe certain alternatives from consideration (Cf. Shepsle 1989: 135-137). In the case at hand, we are concerned with the rules regulating ep committees and their role in the policy-making process, with the rules governing the selection and role of rapporteurs, and the rules shaping internal ep decision-making, but also with the institutional culture (Egeberg & Trondal 2020) permeating the ep and its committees. We submit that these institutional features may privilege actors with a gender equality agenda, thus setting conditions for an environment where contestation is institutionally disfavored.

Our third approach is inspired by the theory of multi-level games in international negotiations (Evans et al. 1993; Gstöhl 2021; Putnam 1988). This literature suggests that negotiations are taking place at several political levels simultaneously. In EU foreign and security policy, the formal role of the Parliament is marginal, as its resolutions are in the form of recommendations only. The final word rests with the Council, sometimes based on proposals from the Commission. At the same time, all institutions have to consider the actions and reactions of the other institutions. Resolutions from the ep may have a normative, opinion-building influence, and its decisions are sending signals to both the Commission and Member States – signaling and communication being essential elements of negotiations (Hopmann 1996). Reversely, the ep and the Commission need to take expected outcomes in the Council–being the ultimate decision-taker–into account, if they want to impact policy directly. The “shadow of the Council” is hanging over the other institutions. We therefore argue that a predicted veto in a two-level game setting may a) diminish the propensity for advanced gender progressive proposals from the ep and the Commission, as they cannot expect too radical proposals to be accepted by the Council, but also b) diminish the motivation of minority opponents in the ep to spend energy on contesting radical proposals, as they in the end can expect a veto in the Council anyway.

Methodology

In order to characterize and explain the process and its outcome, we traced the process from the draft report to the final document. Inspired by fpa, we chose to apply three different levels of analysis in our search of the major factors in this specific case. Furthermore, we opted for a qualitative analysis, which has been used in several other studies of the ep’s work on gender equality policies as it is considered particularly helpful when the aim is to study discursive aspects (such as discursive norm contestation in our case) (Ahrens 2019; Elomäki 2019; Kantola & Lombardo 2021a). Our analysis used a combination of induction and deduction; it was informed by theoretical insights from the negotiation and norm contestation literatures, but also open for aspects not covered by these literatures.

We relied on different forms of material in order to trace the process: first, the main part of the material is based on official text documents, from the draft report to the resolution. These documents include committee amendments and compromise amendments, the committee report from femm, the committee opinion from afet, and the parliamentary debate in plenum. Second, we transcribed the two video recorded committee meetings in which the file was discussed. Third, in order to get complementary information about what went on in the negotiations at different stages, and on the negotiation strategies of the political groups – information that is difficult to extract from documentary evidence – we carried out eight semi-structured interviews with actors involved in the process: five interviewees belong to political groups in the ep and three represent ngo s which had some insights into the process. The interviews covered key elements of our analytical framework, for example, the role of rapporteurs and political groups, the characteristics of committee negotiations, the level of contestation and changes in the text proposals in the course of the process (see the interview questions below). Interview data were carefully compared to findings in existing literature and results from our other types of data.

In order to increase the chances that persons who were involved in the process would agree to be interviewed, the interviewees were offered anonymity. All interviewees but one chose to participate anonymously. The ep interviewees were either political representatives or policy advisors for political groups who were involved in the process. Unfortunately, no representatives of the populist radical right groups, ecr and id, accepted our interview requests. Hence, we have no interviewees from the two political groups that were against the resolution. This is a limitation of our study as it prevented us from learning how members of these groups present their own strategic considerations. However, based on the amendments tabled by mep s from ecr and id, as well as information from our interviewees from the other political groups, we still have a good understanding of the arguments and strategies used by ecr and id. The relative unwillingness of ecr and id representatives to participate in research interviews about the ep’s work on gender related issues is not specific for our study. In a major research project on “gendered practices and policies of the ep’s political groups” (Kantola & Lombardo 2021b: 586), which relied on a large number of interviews, id and ecr were the political groups with the lowest number of interviewees: out of a total number of 133 interviewees, only 11 interviewees represented ecr and 6 id (Elomäki & Ahrens 2022: 328). Finally, the two rapporteurs declined interviews, but accepted to answer a detailed survey with questions on the topics brought up in the interviews.

The ep Process in Brief: From Green Political Group Initiative to ep Resolution

In 2019, the Green political group initiated an own initiative report on the topic of gender equality in the EU’s foreign and security policy. The draft report was presented in March 2020. The start of the process coexisted in time with the Green political group’s own debate and design of a vision of a feminist foreign policy for the EU, which was presented in a report produced by the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy in June 2020 (Bernarding & Lunz 2020).

femm became the leading committee in the handling of the initiative, with afet as associated committee. This meant that both committees had a rapporteur, as well as shadow rapporteurs. Both rapporteurs belonged to the Green political group: Ernest Urtasun for femm and Hannah Neumann for afet. Two rapporteurs from the same political group is unusual (Interview 6). Both committees could table amendments. However, an associated committee has to send its amendments to the lead committee, which can decide what amendments to include.

A Minority Position was reported by the ecr group, stating that it “disagrees with the content of this report as well as with its ideological presumption” (European Parliament 2020b). In addition to the ecr, members from the id group were against or skeptical towards the report. Most mep s from the conservative-Christian Democratic epp group supported the report, but some of its members voted against or abstained. The Green group, the socialist s&d group, the Left group and the liberal Renew Europe group were all in general in favor of the report, but many of their members had their own priorities and views on the report, resulting in a large number of amendments in both committees–no less than 265 in femm (European Parliament 2020c). After negotiations between the rapporteurs and their respective shadows, the result was 43 compromise amendments in femm and 22 in afet. The outcome was a report with some changes in both wording and content compared to the draft report (European Parliament 2020d), but it was still a very progressive report.

Eventually, in the responsible committee (femm), 27 mep s voted in favor of the report, five against (from ecr and id) and two abstained (id). In the opinion giving committee (afet), 49 voted in favor, 11 against (id, ecr and three from epp, as well as one non-attached mep) and nine abstained (id and four from epp). The report was adopted by the responsible committee in July, 2020. After a debate in plenum on October 22, 2020 the text was adopted in plenum the day after, with 477 votes in favor, 112 against and 94 abstentions (European Parliament resolution 2019/2167(ini)).

Arguments and Political Group Alignments

Negotiations in the ep were mainly indirect, based on texts (resolution drafts and amendment proposals), but with elements of Zoom face-to-face oral presentations. There was thus little opportunity for direct verbal debates. Still, the written material that we have analyzed, together with complementary key interviews and the recorded meetings, fully enables us to sort out the major types of arguments and the main controversies and alignments found in the negotiations.

In both committees, there was a solid majority in favor of a progressive resolution that could push other EU institutions towards a foreign policy that mainstreams a gender aspect into most policy areas. In the words of the femm rapporteur, “My impression … is that a big majority of the group stand behind the idea of having a strong report on the matter” (Urtasun, femm committee meeting 25 June, 2020). Actors rejecting a “gender-transformative approach” constituted only a small minority. In essence, the Greens, the Left, s&d, Renew and the majority of the epp supported a strongly worded resolution. According to a representative from the Green political group there was “not much ideological problems” between the Greens, the left-wing gue/ngl, the socialist s&d and the liberals in Renew. Negotiations between the Greens, s&d and the liberals were “more about what to add, they pushed for certain wordings” (Interview 4). Negotiations between these groups were thus clearly of an integrative nature. This picture of the positions of the groups echoes existing accounts of negotiations on other gender-oriented policy issues in the ep (Berthet 2022a, b; Elomäki & Ahrens 2022; Elomäki & Kantola 2022). The femm committee is usually characterized by a high degree of consensus, mainly due to its voluntary status: those who choose to become members usually have a genuine interest in gender equality issues (Ahrens 2016).

The degree of progressiveness within the majority varied, however. Whereas the Green rapporteur for the femm committee proposed a foreign policy “that incorporates a gender-transformative vision, putting the need to address unequal structures and power relations at its centre” (European Parliament 2020a: 6) and referenced the feminist foreign policies of Sweden and France, other political groups, and in particular the epp, were much more cautious and in some instances tried to change the wording of the final document, thereby introducing distributive elements into the negotiations. Gender equality has already been shown to be a contentious topic within the epp (Elomäki 2021: 5); epp contestation and disunity have in other issue areas proven to be a “key factor,” contributing to “silences and uncritical constructions” (Elomäki 2021: 12).

The committee negotiations were heavily dominated by actors from the majority. The populist radical right political groups “were almost absent from the negotiations” (Interview 4; cf. Interviews 7, 8). Critics were only active “on a few occasions” (Urtasun & Neumann, survey answers). In the femm committee meeting on the file in June 2020, no members of id and ecr participated. From a coalition perspective, the main problem for the most progressive political groups was “to get the epp onboard” (Interview 4), while the epp faced the difficult task of finding support for its amendment proposals. To complicate the position of the epp, the political group itself was split on many issues (Interviews 2, 7, 8), as witnessed by the committee voting results: in the afet committee, 11 epp members voted in favor of the proposed resolution, three voted against and four abstained. The voting pattern mainly reflected geographical positions, with representatives from eastern, central and southern Europe voting against or abstaining.⁶

In their efforts to water down the proposed resolution text in line with its preferred, not so radical positions, epp members made use of several types of arguments. Elgström (2000, 2005) suggests that opponents that try to weaken a predominant norm in text negotiations either utilize competing prominent norms or act for weakened language, limited application areas, numerous exceptions or long transition periods. The epp made use of some of these lines of argument. It argued that the existing proposals were “too ideological” (Weiss, afet committee meeting, 19 May 2020; compromise am. 13); a strategy also identified by Kantola and Lombardo (2021a), and suggested less radical formulations in a number of instances. For example, it proposed that the call for EU foreign policy to “incorporate a gender-transformative vision” was to be changed to a call to continue “advancing gender equality” (Am. 114, cf. Am. 63, 197, 213) (European Parliament 2020c). epp also proposed to delete the reference to the feminist foreign policies of France and Sweden (Am. 43).

The epp group furthermore made several references to competing EU norms – subsidiarity and efficiency – that could potentially limit the force and applicability of the gender equality norm. The subsidiarity argument has been utilized in many other contexts and is thus a recurrent theme in efforts to diminish the space for debate on gender equality and to “disguise opposition to gender equality behind Euroskeptic arguments” (Berthet 2022a; cf. Kantola & Lombardo 2021a). In an amendment proposal, epp “reminds the Commission that the principle of subsidiarity … applies to all of the Union’s policies at all times with no exceptions, EU’s foreign and security policy including” (Am. 263, cf. Am. 118) (European Parliament 2020c). In effect, this served to underline the crucial role of Member States – who are often less inclined to adopt a gender-transformative approach. It also emphasized the need for efficiency and attention to unnecessary costs. Instead of a call for “specific earmarked funding,” it “stresses the need to increase the efficient use of existing resources on gender equality” (Am. 170, cf. Am 188) (ibid.). Instead of advocating “a full-time gender focal point in EU delegations,” it proposes “smooth work flows and to keep bureaucracy at a minimum” (Am. 208, cf. Am. 218) (ibid.).

The small populist radical right political groups have been characterized as “norm antipreneurs” (Berthet 2022a), marked by strong opposition to gender equality and to lgbtqi+ rights (Gaweda et al. 2022). These populist groups were, as indicated above, almost absent from committee negotiations but participated in the plenary debate. Here, their intense dislike of the idea of a feminist foreign policy came to the fore.⁷ A representative from the ecr group announced that “gender ideology is an assault on sanity, a virus that tries to get into all areas,” while an id mep ended his speech by exclaiming “put an end to this ideological madness!” (European Parliament 2020e). Populists thus pictured feminism as an invasive ideology (cf. Ahrens 2019). The activities and attitudes of the groups were of a distributive nature, including firm commitments and conflictual language. In its argumentation, the ecr also relied on efficiency and subsidiarity arguments. It criticized the report’s “costly and inefficient bureaucratic control mechanisms” and underlined the sole competence of Member States in foreign policy (European Parliament 2020b). Individuals, especially from the id group, presented a rather large number of amendments proposals. The vast majority of these advocated the deletion of texts that they considered inappropriate. Thus, they wanted to take away references to lgbtqi+ rights (e.g., Am. 96-100) and to srhr (Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights) (e.g., Am. 84, 241, 243) and all references to a feminist foreign policy (Am. 40-42) (European Parliament 2020c). One representative wanted to change all references to “gender equality” to “equality between women and men” (e.g., Am. 44) (ibid.), demonstrating fundamental contestation regarding the concept of “gender” (cf. Berthet 2022a; Elomäki & Kantola 2022).

Importantly, despite these scattered critical voices, most amendment proposals – those from the positive majority – in fact had the effect of strengthening the impact of gender equality goals, primarily by widening the applicability of the resolution. All these political groups seem to have their hobbyhorses, aspects of gender equality that they wish to promote. The Left promoted the role of civil society and women’s role in conflict prevention. The s&d group emphasized women in peace building and peacekeeping and reproductive health and rights and lgbtqi+ rights (Regner, femm committee meeting 25 June 2020; Am. 34, 255, European Parliament 2020c). Renew underlined the role of civil society (Rafael, femm committee meeting 25 June 2020; Am 168, European Parliament 2020c). epp prioritized more attention to violence against women (Am. 250, 252). The result was, as most of these topics won support from other political groups and were included in the final text, a policy document that covered a wide spectrum of issue-areas, a prominent illustration of integrative “expanding the pie” strategies. The inclusion of hobbyhorses was facilitated by the fact that ffp is not a clearly defined policy. Actors that have introduced ffps have emphasized different issue-areas, linked to various aspects of foreign policy in a broad sense (Zhukova et al. 2022).

Changes in the Text from Draft Report to Resolution

To give an indication of to what extent formulations in the radical draft report survived the negotiation process, and how much and in what ways the original text was watered down, or strengthened, in the resolution, we have scrutinized some key elements of the two texts.

In the draft report, the states which had a feminist foreign policy (ffp) at the time (Sweden, France, Canada and Mexico) are mentioned. The section on ffp ends with the following statement: “whereas any future EU foreign and security policy should aim to achieve these goals” (European Parliament 2020a: 4-5), hence implying that the EU should aim for the same goals as states with ffps. In the resolution, a ffp for the EU is not mentioned, but instead it “[c]alls on all Member States to adopt a feminist foreign and security policy” (European Parliament resolution 2019/2167(ini). Thus, the call for a ffp has moved from the EU to the Member States. However, the almost as radical formulation about a “gender-transformative vision” of foreign and security policy – both for the EU and the Member States – is found in both texts.

The four ffp-states are no longer mentioned in the resolution as states with a feminist foreign policy. Sweden, the first ffp-state in the world, is instead described to have “a strong gender equality-focused foreign policy,” together with Denmark, Switzerland and Norway (ibid.). Several EU Member States are mentioned in the resolution as states that “have announced their intention to make gender equality a priority of their foreign policy” (ibid.). While the draft report “[c]alls on the eeas [European External Action Service], the relevant Commission services and the Member States” to systematically integrate “an intersectional perspective into the EU’s foreign and security policy” (European Parliament 2020a: 6), the formulation in the resolution went further by adding more actors – “European agencies working outside the European Union’s borders” – as well as more areas: “enlargement, trade and development poli1cy” (European Parliament resolution 2019/2167(ini)). While trade is absent in the draft report, it is mentioned several times in the resolution, in which trade agreements are described as important tools for “advancing gender equality and empowering women in third countries” (ibid.).

According to the draft report, “any understanding of security that focuses on States rather than human beings is defective and will not lead to peace” (European Parliament 2020a: 4). Hence it strongly objects to the “traditional” state-centered focus on security. This strong formulation did not make it into the resolution, but the final document still puts a human security perspective at the fore, and relates it to gender equality: “a gender-sensitive approach means a human-centered security approach” (European Parliament resolution 2019/2167(ini)).

The resolution is more encompassing than the draft report. Some issue areas that could have been expected to be difficult to get into the resolution were actually much more frequent in the final document: while lgbtqi+ is mentioned three times in the draft report, it occurs (in some form) 11 times in the resolution. Also, the statements on lgbtqi+ rights are no less progressive in the final document. srhr , another possibly contentious issue area, is also more frequently mentioned in the resolution and in progressive terms as well. The final document also has an even stronger emphasis on the importance of and need to protect women human rights defenders.

Characterization of the Negotiation Process and Its Outcome

The previous sections lead us to two major conclusions:

• The ep negotiation process resulting in the resolution on a gender equality-based foreign and security policy was marked by a surprising degree of consensus, supporting a strong report. The level of contestation was low. The normative climate during the negotiations and the attitudes towards a “gender-transformative vision” were “mainly positive” (Urtasun & Neumann, survey). Overall, the process was characterized by an integrative approach to negotiations.

• The end result, the resolution, is remarkably supportive of a “gender-transformative approach.” The main messages and key elements of the progressive proposals from the rapporteurs survived the negotiation process. Though the language in the text was watered down in some instances, its range of applicability was widened with the inclusion of a large number of amendments, illustrating the key integrative strategy to “expand the pie.” Compared to existing policies and to outputs from other EU institutions, the resolution must be considered radical.

There was a large majority behind a strongly worded resolution in the two committees that handled the dossier. It is noteworthy that not only femm but also afet, the committee in charge of foreign and security policy, areas that are usually perceived to be permeated with concerns for sovereignty and subsidiarity, supported the final resolution. Though there was opposition to the inclusion of the word “feminist” to describe the policy, there was a widely shared consensus about the need for an EU foreign policy that mainstreams the notion of gender equality. The debates in the committees were about details, not principles (Urtasun & Neumann, survey). The critical voices were few and marginalized. The actors within the majority that wanted to weaken the text (to make it “less ideological”) made use of types of arguments that we recognize from the literature on norm negotiations and from existing works on gender equality in the ep: they introduced competing norms (subsidiarity and efficiency) to limit the effects and applicability of the proposal. Still, their degree of success was limited.

We find these results surprising and in need of explanation, given the limited number of Member States that have adopted progressive gender-oriented foreign policies and given the populist wave in Europe, associated with resistance against gender equality, srhr and lgbtqi+ rights. We therefore now turn to an examination of potential explanatory approaches.

Explaining Our Findings: The Three Approaches

Conclusions

Our findings demonstrate that the process leading up to the ep decision was characterized by a shared wish for a strong resolution in a large majority of the political groups and in both committees. The degree of contestation was low. The strong opponents – the populist radical right – were almost absent from the committee debates. In text-negotiations, actors tried to find wordings and formulations that were acceptable to all major political groups. Using terms from negotiation theory, the negotiation process was integrative rather than distributive (Elgström 1992: 13-14; Hopmann 1996: 59-61) – it was influenced by the common interest to have a progressive agreement and characterized by a problem-solving approach (Hopmann 1996: 77). To facilitate a solution that all could accept, the main parties sought to “expand the pie” (cf. Hopmann 1996: 190-194) by letting all major political groups include their particular hobbyhorses into the final document. This was made easier by the rather vague nature of ffp as a foreign policy phenomenon. All the majority groups accepted compromise formulations that were not their initial preferences because reaching a forceful overall agreement was their first priority.

The end product, the resolution, must be considered radical, especially when compared to previous documents and to the policies of other EU institutions. In contrast, negotiations between the progressive majority and the anti-gender right-wing populist political groups were of a more distributive nature (Elgström & Jönsson 2000; Hopmann 1996). These “antipreneurs” (Berthet 2022a) were not involved in trying to find compromise solutions, instead relying on verbal attacks on gender equality and its proponents. Their strategies were aimed to roll back the ep’s traditional progressive, pro-gender positions. The negotiation process that we have studied thus includes both types of negotiation: integrative and distributive, but with a large emphasis on the integrative elements, reflecting the consensus-oriented nature of the ep.

In trying to explain these findings, we turned to factors on three levels. We find that individual and institutional factors, taken together, have high explanatory power. The proposed structural level explanations, referring to multi-level games among the EU institutions, seem less fruitful, but still provide the insight that the ep’s awareness of its limited role within foreign policy leads it to define its role as pushing other institutions toward its preferred positions. This made it an advantage to have a strong resolution that could send a clear signal to the Commission and the Council, making it more difficult for reluctant mep s to vote against the final text.

Institutional- and individual-level factors interacted to produce the relatively uncontested process and the radical outcome. The gender equality-friendly institutional culture was further strengthened by having two committed individuals, both coming from a progressive political group, as rapporteurs. The Green political group and its spokespersons acted as norm entrepreneurs in the process. The fact that all major political groups tend to have their most progressive members on gender equality in the femm committee helped to produce negotiations free from disruptive conflicts, while the prominence of a gender-integrative culture encouraged a debate climate supportive of a strong document and deterred the involvement of critical voices. All these factors together clearly facilitated the emergence of an integrative negotiation process within the progressive majority of political groups. In brief, we conclude that the existence of a network of feminist entrepreneurs together with a dominant gender equality-positive institutional culture are key factors to explain the characteristics of the process and the negotiated outcome.

Our use of negotiation theory has made us aware of two intriguing phenomena that have not been appreciated in existing research on the ep and gender politics. First, the simultaneous existence of two different varieties of negotiations; integrative and distributive. The distributive, conflictual element of ep gender-oriented negotiations seems to increase with the advance of populist radical right political groups, in both Member States and in the ep. Second, that the types of arguments found in gender equality negotiations are commonly found also in other cases of norm negotiations, in particular where a contested norm has had a predominant status, but where there are actors that wish to undermine and eventually replace the formerly dominating norm with competing normative ideals (cf. Elgström 2000).

Some lessons for practitioners can be learnt from this experience. First, proponents of future norm contesting resolutions should endeavor to get the epp on board, even if this means that the final text may be diluted. This political group occupies a pivotal position, in terms of voting power, in the ep, and support from at least most of its members is crucial to reach a majority behind a proposed resolution. Second, if these proponents want a broad majority behind a resolution, it should aim to include the special interests, the hobbyhorses, of all relevant political groups, thereby facilitating an integrative negotiated solution. Third, populist opponents of progressive resolutions should try to persuade members of the epp to support their opposition, using both normative arguments and references to effectiveness and subsidiarity, themes that could appeal to conservative representatives.

To conclude, we argue that our negotiation approach, emphasizing both the strategies of negotiating actors and the nature of the negotiation process, has proven to cast additional light on gender equality-related contestation in the ep. A negotiation perspective highlights the complex interaction between conflictual and cooperative elements and the special role and nature of text negotiations in processes of norm defense and norm advancement.

Interview Questions

• How did the idea to have an EU feminist foreign policy (ffp) come about in the ep? Who were the initiators and what were their inspiration?

• How were the two Rapporteurs selected? Consequences of having two Rapporteurs from the Green party group?

• Why these two Committees? Did it matter what which Committee was designated lead Committee and opinion-giving Committee?

• What types of political cleavages and contestations existed in your committee in the ep regarding ffp? Between what actors (party groups; countries)?

• How would you describe the normative climate and the attitudes towards an ffp in your committee? (dominantly negative – divided – dominantly positive)

• Were there intense and heated debates within the Committee?

• To what extent were actors critical to a ffp in general active in the ep decision-making process? How? What types of argument did they use? If they were not active, why?

• How can one explain the fact that the resolution was decided with a big majority in the ep, despite the polarized climate regarding gender equality and women’s rights?

• Do you think the original, rather radical, framing of an ep ffp watered down or strengthened in the process? Examples?

• Was there any mentioning of or links made to any of the existing ffps in the EU member states in the discussions?

• To what extent was a potential Council position on the issue taken into account during the ep process?

• How do you perceive the relationship between the ep process and the Commission’s gap iii-process?

• Do you consider there to be a difference between a “gender transformative approach in external action” (gap iii) and a “gender transformative foreign policy” (ep resolution), on the one hand, and a “feminist foreign policy” on the other?