This Policy Study applies a feminist reading to explore how care is addressed in the NextGenerationEU fund, considering that this historic EU fiscal stimulus tool was set up precisely to help member states repair the immediate socioeconomic damage brought about by the COVID pandemic, whilst enhancing their post-pandemic resilience.

The study analyses how member states have used the opportunity of the NGEU to integrate a care dimension into their own plans, regardless of the absence of an explicit care criterion, unlike the green and digital spending thresholds.

The author engages with the feminist literature on care to analyse the resulting National Recovery and Resilience Plans across Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Germany, Finland, Italy, Latvia and Spain. The ambition is to understand to what extent the NRRPs have adopted a care-led approach in response to the care crisis exacerbated by COVID-19.