The Renew Europe Group in the European Parliament welcomes the European Commission’s Roadmap for Women’s Rights, presented ahead of International Women’s Day. This initiative outlines the Commission’s long-term vision for strengthening the protection and promotion of women’s rights across the EU. Renew Europe has been a strong advocate for reinforcing commitments to gender equality, pushing for key priorities to be reflected in the final version of the Roadmap. Notably, it underscores the urgent need to prevent and combat sexual violence, including rape, by recognising the principle of consent—a long-standing priority for Renew Europe. The Roadmap also commits to tackling gender bias in digital tools, ensuring that emerging technologies do not perpetuate harmful stereotypes. Taking an intersectional approach, the Roadmap acknowledges that women facing multiple and overlapping forms of discrimination require targeted policies to ensure inclusivity. It also reinforces the EU’s commitment to gender mainstreaming, ensuring that gender perspectives are integrated into policymaking and budgeting processes that directly impact women's rights. Furthermore, it emphasises the need to protect women’s health, including access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and advances gender-sensitive medical research, clinical trials, and diagnostics. However, while sexual and reproductive health and rights are acknowledged, the Roadmap stops short of ensuring access to safe and legal abortion, leaving women in some EU countries without essential healthcare and reproductive rights. Renew Europe remains committed to pushing for stronger guarantees to close these gaps and ensure that SRHR are fully recognised as a fundamental right across the EU. At a time when women's rights are increasingly under pressure, the EU must take the lead in turning these commitments into concrete action. MEP Abir Al-Sahlani (Centerpartiet/Sweden), Renew Europe Coordinator for the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, said: "As women's rights come under growing attack and hard-won progress is at stake, Europe must remain a champion for equality and quickly jump into action. Now is our chance to actually create real change, and ensure that women's health, rights, and freedoms are protected and promoted in the EU. Renew Europe will fight every day to make sure we deliver progress for all women." | 
