Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

On the 12 of November 2020, the European Commission issued a Communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions called ‘Union of Equality: LGBTIQ Equality Strategy 2020-2025’. This was the European Commission’s first LGBTIQ Strategy.

Outlining key objectives and steps against discrimination and for LGBTIQ+ equality, safety and inclusiveness, in the European Union and around the world, the LGBTIQ Strategy was considered an historical milestone. When adopted, the Strategy was received with great hope by LGBTIQ+ civil society organisations, human rights defenders and people.

In 2023, the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) decided to prepare a report of implementation on the LGBTIQ Strategy. Making use of its conclusions and recommendations, this implementation report shall have two effects: work as a scrutiny tool, making sure the LGBTIQ Strategy lives up to its commitments; and strengthen the calls for a new Strategy for the coming years.

The draft report is organised in conclusions and recommendations, making reference to the four pillars of the LGBTIQ Equality Strategy 2020-2025: (1) Tackling discrimination against LGBTIQ people; (2) Ensuring LGBTIQ people’s safety; (3) Building LGBTIQ inclusive societies; (4) Leading the call for LGBTIQ equality around the world.

Tackling discrimination against LGBTIQ people

The conclusions of the draft report recognise the discriminations faced by LGBTIQ+ people and their intersections. The rapporteur expresses concern with the discrimination and violence suffered by LGBTIQ+ persons in the EU and their consequences for the full enjoyment of free and dignified lives. The text regrets that the horizontal anti-discrimination directive has been blocked in the Council since 2008.

As part of its recommendations on combatting discrimination, the draft report calls on the EU and Member States for a true mainstreaming of LGBTIQ+ rights across all EU policies, including all grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC). Furthermore, it calls the EU and Member States to promote inclusive policies and safe environments in the housing, employment, health, education, culture, sports sectors, among others.

Ensuring LGBTIQ people’s safety

The text recognises current challenges to LGBTIQ+ safety across Europe, highlighting that developments in some Member States have shown that progress on LGBTIQ+ rights cannot be taken for granted. Particularly, the rapporteur condemns that the rise of far right political forces has motivated an increase of the harassment and persecution of LGBTIQ+ persons.

Echoing civil society calls, the rapporteur calls on the European Commission and Member States to recognise SOGIESC as bias-motivations and to typify and criminalise hate speech, hate crimes and violence on that basis, in the physical world or online. Furthermore, the draft report includes calls on the Commission to push Member States to ban ‘conversion practices’ on the grounds of SOGIESC and to ban harmful practices such as forced abortions, forced sterilisations, and genital mutilation. The text highlights that LGBTIQ+ people’s autonomy, bodily and mental health shall be protected under all circumstances.

The rapporteur also includes recommendations for a greater funding and support to services providing support to LGBTIQ+ survivors of gender-based violence, in particular LGBTIQ+ women.

Expressing concern with the risks of recent technologies over the lives and rights of LGBTIQ+ people, the draft report expresses support with all efforts to regulate and minimise the risks of artificial intelligence for LGBTIQ+ people , in particular in AI uses that include surveillance and facial recognition mechanisms.

Expressing disquiet with the risks faced by Human Rights Defenders at the European level, in particular by LGBTIQ+ HRD’s, the draft report urges the European Union to extend its mechanism for the protection of HRD’s to EU member states.

Regarding the safety of LGBTIQ+ people seeking asylum in the EU, the rapporteur expresses deep concern over the implications for the LGBTIQ+ persons of the proposals included in the new Pact on Migration and Asylum. In that sense, the text calls on the EU to grant access to asylum to LGBTIQ+ persons, including those from so-called ‘safe countries’.

Building LGBTIQ inclusive societies

The text recalls that the right to equal treatment and non-discrimination is a fundamental right enshrined in the Treaties and in the Charter, and that equality and the protection of minorities are among the EU values enshrined in Article 2 TEU. While the text recognises that there has been progress in protecting and advancing LGBTIQ+ rights in some Member States, it also concludes that LGBTIQ+ people face intersecting and multiple kinds of exclusion.

Paying attention to specific sectors, the draft report calls the Commission and Member States to adopt measures against the discrimination of LGBTIQ+ persons in the health sector. Particularly, it calls on Member States to expand coverage of all healthcare services, allowing LGBTIQ+ persons to seek specific care, including sexual and reproductive health and technologies.

On employment, the text calls on Member States to duly implement the Directive on equal treatment in employment and occupation. Finally, the text calls on the Commission and Member States to promote safe and inclusive environments in education, culture, sports and other sectors.

The draft report also reiterates European Parliament calls for the protection and promotion of the rights of rainbow families. The report insists that the EU needs to take a common approach to the legal recognition of same-sex marriages and partnerships, and of rainbow parents, including of trans parents, and to legal gender recognition, to ensure the best interests of children in line with case law. Additionally, it insists that rainbow families have a right to free movement in the EU, and the children of rainbow families should not be discriminated against in the acquisition of EU citizenship.

In order to tackle discrimination and to build inclusive public policies tailored for LGBTIQ+ persons, the rapporteur echoes civil society pleas and calls on the Commission to step up data collection on discrimination based on SOGIESC.

Leading the call for LGBTIQ equality around the world

The draft report underlines that the EU must leave no one behind in the protection of fundamental rights. Whereas the EU has made commitments to promote and protect LGBTIQ+ rights worldwide, the draft report also makes mention to those commitments. The draft report calls on the EU to be an example and to assume a leadership role on the promotion of LGBTIQ+ rights around the world, including through funding.

In the case of enlargement countries, the draft report underlines the need for the EU to support them to close legislative gaps regarding the rights of LGBTIQ+ persons. Regarding development aid, it calls on the Commission to ensure that LGBTIQ+ persons are supported as part of wider development aid programmes and to further improve the possibility of regranting and provide flexible funding to civil society organisations and groups working towards the protection and promotion of LGBTIQ+ rights. Furthermore, the rapporteur calls on the EU to continue tackling the stigmatisation and harassment of LGBTIQ+ Human Rights Defenders (HRD’s). These calls are understood as essential for the promotion of safe, inclusive and enabling environments for LGBTIQ+ people and activism.

Finally, the text recalls that European humanitarian aid should be gender, age and LGBTIQ+ sensitive, and in line with humanitarian principles.

A new LGBTIQ Strategy

The overarching conclusion of this draft report is that, in the EU and worldwide, there is much work to be done. Both in Europe and across the world, the rapporteur expresses the need to support and adequately fund civil society organisations and groups working towards the protection and promotion of LGBTIQ+ rights as essential steps for the protection and promotion of LGBTIQ+ rights at the local, national and regional levels.

Thus, the draft report ends by calling on the Commission for preparing a new LGBTIQ+ Equality Strategy for 2025-2030. To make it effective, it should be accompanied by an implementation plan, a strong mainstreaming structure and resource allocation, and include a chronogram, ensuring the Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) processes, including consultation of LGBTIQ+ organisations.

Finally, the rapporteur calls on the Commission to secure a mandate of the Equality and Diversity Commissioner in the next term.