The European Union’s actions in the domain of combating gender-based violence

This chapter provides an overview and assessment of the European Union’s actions in combating gender-based violence. It argues that, despite its lack of fundamental rights pedigree, the EU has slowly but surely become a serious actor in this area. The EU plays a pro-active and consistent role in soft law and external actions. However, its interventions in hard law (primary, secondary and case law) have been scattered and lack gender-sensitivity. The EU’s ratification of the Istanbul Convention could eliminate some of these inconsistencies and shortcomings, but legal and political obstacles indicate that the current patchwork approach will remain unchanged.