The Feminist Foreign Policy Progressive Voices Collective (FFPPVC)

Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) has gained significant ground in policy discourse over the past years. Much more than a mere rhetorical gesture, this policy approach has demonstrated significant potential for reducing global inequalities by shifting its focus towards the wellbeing and inclusion of the most marginalised voices. At the European level, although several EU Member states have adopted a FFP, the European Union still needs a more ambitious approach to substantially transforming the concept and practice of its foreign policy.

For the next year, FEPS and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, supported by an active network of dedicated partners, will be questioning traditional approaches to foreign policy to enable an alternative account of foreign relations from the standpoint of the most disadvantaged.

In light of the nascent place of feminist foreign policy approaches globally, this project endeavours to explore the transformative potentials of and identify existing challenges for a “European feminist policy” for progressive stakeholders. To shift away from seeing gender equality as a mere “add on”, this project applies a feminist lens to this policy field traditionally claimed as gender-neutral and technocratic.

Objectives

The project aims at advancing concrete policy recommendations for European and national policymakers. The objectives pursued by this project are three-fold:

1. Delineate the precise contours of a shared vision of feminist foreign policy for progressive policy makers with the adoption of a conceptual framework, the sharing of best practices and the collection of relevant indicators.
2. Analyse the main challenges in promoting FFP as a goal of EU foreign policy to overcome the persisting barriers better, including a comprehensive review of the capacity of the current EU institutional set-up, culture and action to cope with gender mainstreaming mechanisms.
3. Demonstrate the intrinsic value of a European Feminist Foreign Policy and advance policy recommendations, through a thorough assessment of national good practices.

FFPP Voices: A collective to promote a feminist and progressive approach to foreign policy

In order to achieve its goals, the project will build on a multistakeholder feminist foreign policy community. This network will gather feminist policy experts on a periodic or ad-hoc basis, depending on current events. With particular attention to gender and intersectional considerations, its mission will consist of discussing international politics from a feminist lens and help to gear the ideas and policy recommendations emerging from this project.

Among the activities considered as part of this project, a series of policy brief, several experts meetings and a public conference are being planned.  

We kicked off our activities on 23 and 24 October 2023 during the conference ‘Walking the Talk: Feminist Foreign Policy in Action‘ in Brussels.

We will discuss the research’s challenges and findings on several occasions. ‘A European feminist foreign policy?‘ is the first publication of the series.

If you are interested in joining the conversations or would like to know more about the research and collective, please contact Laeticia Thissen, FEPS Senior Policy Analyst at Laeticia.thissen@feps-europe.eu and Euléane Omez, FEPS Project Management Coordination at euleane.omez@feps-europe.eu

Find here pictures of the collective, which met for the first time on 24 October 2023

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Strategic partners