The European Institute for Gender Equality is a Vilnius-based agency of the European Union inaugurated on 2007. It was established by Council Regulation (EC) No 1922/2006 of 20 December 2006. Recruitment of its Director was advertised in April 2007.

Funded by the Commission, with a proposed budget of €52.5 million for the period 2007 to 2013, this new European Institute will support the EU institutions and the Member States in promoting equality between women and men and combating sex discrimination. The Institute will gather, analyse and disseminate reliable and comparable research data and information needed by policy-makers. It will have a documentation centre and a library which will be open to the public.

The Management Board of the institute consists of eighteen representatives of the EU Member States appointed by the Council and of one member representing the European Commission. An Experts' forum as further body of the institute consists of delegates designated by the Member States (27), the European Parliament (2) and the Commission (3), the latter including representatives from non-governmental, employers' and workers' organisations at EU level.

Gender equality, also known as sex equality or sexual equality, is the goal of the equality of the genders, stemming from a belief in the injustice of myriad forms of gender inequality. This includes making women's rights equal to men's and also making men's rights equal to women's, as follows.

The movement towards gender equality, especially in Western countries, began with the suffragette movement of the late-19th century. Then there was a change in relation to women's property rights in marriage. (See for example, Married Women's Property Act 1882.) In the 1960s, a more general movement for gender equality developed based on women's liberation and feminism. The issue was women's rights. The idea was that women should have equal rights with men. However, actual changes in attitudes continued to focus on specific issues.

The movement resulted in anti-discrimination laws. Changes to attitudes to equality in education opportunities for boys and girls has also undergone a cultural shift. Some changes came about by adopting affirmative action policies. The change has also involved changes to social views, including "equal pay for equal work" as well as most occupations being equally available to men and women, in many countries. For example, many countries now permit women to serve in the armed forces, the police force and to be fire fighters. Also, an increasing number of women are active in politics and occupy high positions in business.

The European Institute is a nonpartisan public policy organization dedicated to Transatlantic relations. The Institute was founded in 1989 and is based in Washington, D.C.. It regularly hosts forums, roundtable discussions, and programs with political and business leaders from the U.S. and Europe. Additionally, the Institute publishes the e-journal European Affairs.

According to the Institute's website, the organization's mission is "to provide an independent forum for US and European government and corporate decision makers, officials from multilateral organizations, foreign and economic policy analysts, and expert journalists to discuss issues of common concern and develop effective and mutually beneficial solutions."

The Institute's programs generally fall into the following 10 categories: Defense and Civil Security; Trade and Investment; Financial and Monetary Affairs; Energy and Environment; Transportation; IT and Telecommunications; Aeronautics and Space; Biotechnology, Food Safety and Consumer Protection; Transatlantic Governance and EU-US-Russia Triangular Relations.

Urmas Paet (born 20 April 1974) is an Estonian politician who has been Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia since 2005. He is a member of the Estonian Reform Party. As of September 2010, Paet has been the longest serving minister since the re-establishment of Estonian independence.

Paet was born in Tallinn. He graduated from the University of Tartu in 1996 with a BA in political science and continued his graduate studies there, however without obtaining the degree. He had been active in journalism during his studies, and continued in that career until 1999, when he entered politics by joining the Reform Party and becoming professional advisor. He served as the Deputy Mayor of Nõmme (a district of Tallinn) from 1999 to 2003.

In April 2003, when the Juhan Parts government took office, Paet became Estonian Minister of Culture. He remained in that position until April 2005, when the Parts government fell. Since April 2005, when the Andrus Ansip cabinet took office, he has been Foreign Minister.

Erkki Sakari Tuomioja (born 1 July 1946) is the Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs. He is currently a member of the Finnish Parliament.

Tuomioja is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Finland, although his political views are thought to be more to the left than the party line. He is also a member of ATTAC. In the past, Tuomioja has dated the former Finnish president Tarja Halonen.^{[citation needed]}

He was the president of the Nordic Council in 2008.

Erkki Tuomioja is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy.

Tuomioja comes from a family of politicians. His father Sakari Tuomioja was a prominent liberal Finnish politician and diplomat, and the challenger of Urho Kekkonen for the conservatives and liberals in the 1956 presidential elections. His maternal grandmother was Hella Wuolijoki, the Estonian born writer and socialist activist.

Tuomioja holds the degrees of Master of Social Sciences (1971) and Master of Science in Economics and Business Administration (1974) from the Helsinki School of Economics, as well as Licentiate in Social Sciences (1980) and Doctor in Social Sciences (1996) from the University of Helsinki. In addition to Finnish, Tuomioja speaks Swedish, English, French, German and Estonian.^{[citation needed]}