Europe is spending more on security than ever before, yet for millions of women and disadvantaged communities, daily life continues to be unsafe.
World military expenditure[*] has reached $2887 billion in 2025. Spending increased globally, with Europe recording a 14 percent rise to $864 billion, compared to an 8.1 percent increase in Asia and Oceania. This can be attributed to two major factors: the growing geo-political instability in the region, primarily due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the uncertainty over US security guarantees for European members of NATO (Liang, et al., 2025).
The increasing prioritisation of military expenditure comes at a cost: reshaping public spending priorities across national, European and global levels, and placing growing pressure on resources for social protection and gender equality.
At the global level, European governments play a central role as major donors of official development assistance (ODA). However, the EU and its member states are now scaling back their commitments. Estimates indicate that nine European donors, including 8 countries and the EU, have announced or already implemented cuts to ODA amounting to 30 billion over the next four years (Countdown 2030 Europe, 2025). This withdrawal of support has resulted in an unprecedented financial crisis for frontline actors, including women’s rights organisations and civil society groups that provide essential services such as shelters, psychosocial support, legal aid, and prevention programmes. The consequences of this crisis are already evident. A recent UN Women survey of 428 organisations worldwide found that 90% reported severe reductions in women’s and girls’ access to essential services, while nearly a quarter had been forced to halt prevention programmes altogether. Moreover, only 5% of these organisations believe they can sustain their current operations for more than two years, reflecting a rapidly shrinking ecosystem of support for those most at risk (Zulver & Breimann, 2025).
This pattern is equally evident at the EU level, where important legal and policy commitments risk remaining unimplemented due to insufficient financial backing. The adoption of the EU Directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence in May 2024 marks a historic milestone as the first comprehensive EU-level legal instrument addressing this issue, with Member States required to transpose it into national law by June 2027. The directive implements and reinforces the ratification of the Istanbul convention by the EU in 2023 and provides EU-level definitions of a number of crimes, particularly cyberviolence. Several countries are already taking encouraging steps: Czechia’s 2025 amendment to the Criminal Code redefines rape as any sexual act without consent, while Bulgaria has developed a national compendium of local practices to prevent and respond to violence (European Comission, 2025). At the policy level, the proposed expansion of the EU’s Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme (CERV+) under the 2028–2034 EU budget signals a renewed commitment to supporting civil society and gender equality across the Union (Women Against Violence Europe, 2025). However, without sustainable funding mechanisms, there is a growing risk that these advances will not be matched by the resources required for implementation. Meeting these commitments requires sustained investment in prevention, protection, and support services, yet in a context of tightening budgets, such obligations are increasingly perceived as financially difficult to fulfil, even where political will exists (Kumbisek, et al., 2025).
The underfunding and de-prioritisation of gender equality programmes is also evident in the national funding mechanisms of EU member states. For example, in Bulgaria, specialised services for survivors remain chronically underfunded, while across central and eastern Europe feminist and human rights organisations face mounting pressure from shrinking civic space and growing authoritarianism (Terpesheva & Dermendjieva, 2025). In Hungary, restrictions have curtailed support for NGOs working on gender and LGBTQIA+ rights, while in Italy funding to address gender-based violence has been deprioritised (Keilholz & Lharaig, 2025).
The social consequences of this underinvestment in gender equality and gender based violence programmes are both immediate and long-term. Reduced funding for shelters, legal aid, and psychosocial support limits survivors’ ability to access protection and justice, while cuts to prevention programmes weaken efforts to address the root causes of violence. Over time, this erodes trust in public institutions and reinforces cycles of inequality, particularly for women and marginalized communities who are disproportionately exposed to violence.
Beyond the profound social consequences, this underinvestment carries significant economic costs that are often overlooked in public spending debates. Estimates show that gender-based violence costs the EU an around €366 billion every year. Violence against women alone accounts for 79 percent of this total, about €289 billion, with intimate partner violence representing nearly half of all costs. These figures capture lost economic output from reduced productivity, the strain placed on public services, including health care, housing, child protection and criminal justice, and the physical and emotional harm endured by survivors, which significantly reduces quality of life (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2021).
On the other hand, investing in gender equality delivers lasting social and economic returns. Equal participation of women and men in education, work, and decision-making leads to healthier societies, stronger democracies, and more resilient economies. Evidence suggests that closing gender gaps could create 10.5 million additional jobs and increase the EU’s GDP per capita by 6.1- 9.6 percent, equivalent to a boost of up to €3.15 trillion by 2050 (European Institute for Gender Equality, n.d.). Therefore a commitment and financial backing to organisations and initiatives working towards gender equality is not only a moral obligation but also one of Europe’s smartest and most forward-looking investments.
In conclusion, if Europe’s priority is security, it must begin at home. This means investing not only in defence, but in the systems that prevent violence, protect survivors, and uphold fundamental rights. Without sustained financial commitment to gender equality and the fight against gender-based violence, Europe risks strengthening its borders while leaving millions unsafe within them.
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(n.d.).
[*]Military expenditure refers to all government spending on current military forces and activities, including salaries and benefits, operational expenses, arms and equipment purchases, military construction, research and development, and central administration, command and support.
