Thematic or high level priority budgeting is on the rise all over the world. In Austria, it has been an issue for many years. Gender budgeting has even made it into the federal constitution and received a big push with the budget reform 2013. Recently, climate budgeting has received increased attention and efforts to include it in the budget documentation have been undertaken. But still thematic or high level priority budgeting, however, leads a somewhat shadowy existence and remains below its potential in Austria. This is the motivation for this presentation, which intends to examine the logic of thematic or high level priority budgeting as well as international developments in the field with a focus on gender budgeting.