Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

Added6. Regrets that despite EU legislation prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment and occupation, LGBTIQ+ persons still face barriers to accessing employment, in particular decent jobs; expresses the view that LGBTIQ+ rights are workers’ rights;

Removed7. Expresses deep concern over the implications for LGBTIQ+ persons of the proposals included in the New Pact on Migration and Asylum; expresses concern that trans and intersex persons face even more obstacles in the process of applying for asylum;

Added7. Underlines that access to healthcare should be offered as a timely and accessible public service;

Removed8. Condemns the fact that the rise of far-right political forces has motivated an increase in the harassment and persecution of LBGTIQ+ persons;

Added8. Emphasises the need for an inclusive and safe education for LGBTIQ+ persons in all Member States, especially for LGBTIQ+ youths;

Removed9. Underlines the need for the EU to support enlargement countries to close legislative gaps regarding the rights of LGBTIQ+ persons;

Added9. Regrets that LGBTIQ+ people still face discrimination in some Member States regarding access to social protection, social security, access to the supply of goods and other sectors or services;

Removed10. 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 CJEU case-law;

Added10. Regrets that older LGBTIQ+ people are particularly affected by the lack of LGBTIQ+ rights, further exacerbating a sense of social isolation and barriers to access to essential services; highlights that the older LGBTIQ+ population is often neglected in the design of public policies and of projects, including in those tailored for LGBTIQ+ people; underlines that the older LGBTIQ+ population is disproportionately affected by poverty and the lack of access to decent housing and adequate care networks; underlines that a European LGBTIQ Freedom Zone cannot leave anyone behind;

Added11. Stresses that care services for LGBTIQ+ people must always ensure the dignity, independence, autonomy, well-being and participation in social life of those receiving it, including the possibility of home-care and of community-based services;

Added12. Notes that LGBTIQ+ people in rural, peripheral and outermost regions face particular challenges and barriers to their access to essential services;

Added13. Expresses deep concern over LGBTIQ+ persons needing to exercise their right to request asylum in the European Union; expresses concern that trans and intersex persons face additional obstacles in the process of applying for asylum; underlines the importance that the situation of LGBTIQ+ persons is taken into account when designing the Union's asylum and migration policy;

Added14. Expresses deep concern with the rise of hate speech, hate crimes and violence against LGBTIQ+ persons, including in online platforms, where it could lead to breaching privacy rights of viewers of LGBTIQ+ content; recalls the need for preventive and protective public policy regarding bias-motivated hate speech, hate crimes and violence against LGBTIQ+ persons; recognises there is an under-reporting of cases of hate speech and crimes against LGBTIQ+ people, due to a lack of trust and confidence in public authorities to tackle such crimes;

Added15. Condemns the fact that the rise of far-right political forces has motivated an increase in the stigmatisation, harassment, violence and persecution of LGBTIQ+ persons and LGBTIQ+ civil society organisations and activists; condemns the increasing scapegoating of the LGBTIQ+ community and the harmful designation of the promotion of LGBTIQ+ rights as an ‘ideology’;

Added16. Underlines the need for the EU to address the situation of LGBTIQ+ persons in formal negotiations with candidate countries and to support all enlargement countries to close legislative gaps and secure fundamental rights of LGBTIQ+ persons;

Added17. 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 trans parents, and to legal gender recognition, to ensure the best interests of children in line with CJEU and ECtHR case law;

Added18. Highlights the challenges faced by trans, non-binary and intersex people in the EU, particularly as regards their socio-economic and sociodemographic status; underlines how the absence of legal gender recognition procedures or barriers to accessing them in Member States violate the rights and hinder the aspirations of trans, non-binary and intersex people across the Union;

19. 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 acquiring EU citizenship;

Change 8

Removed12. Emphasises the urgency for the Commission to facilitate access to funding for civil society organisations (CSOs) working for the human rights of LGBTIQ+ persons in the Union and in third countries;

Added20. Expresses concern that facial recognition and profiling technology might create greater risks for LGBTIQ+ people, in particular for trans and non-binary and intersex people;

Removed13. Recalls that European humanitarian aid should be gender-, age- and LGBTIQ+-sensitive, and in line with humanitarian principles;

Added21. Regrets the lack of a cohesive overview of EU funding for LGBTIQ+ equality under the different programmes supporting the Strategy;

Added22. Emphasises the urgency for the Commission to ensure access to funding for civil society organisations (CSOs) working for the human rights of LGBTIQ+ persons in the Union and in third countries; notes that adequate and flexible funding to CSOs advocating for LGBTIQ+ rights is an essential enabling condition for the protection and promotion of LGBTIQ+ rights, in the European Union and in third countries;

Added23. Welcomes EU initiatives directed at protecting LGBTIQ+ human rights defenders and at facilitating their work of defending fundamental rights; emphasises the need for the EU to continue tackling the stigmatisation, intimidation, harassment of LGBTIQ+ human rights defenders across the world: welcomes the Commission’s support of LGBTIQ+ activists in Ukraine, especially through the ‘direct award’ modality since the start of the Russian invasion and war of aggression against Ukraine;

Added24. Recalls that European humanitarian aid should be gender-, age-, protection- and LGBTIQ+-sensitive, while taking into consideration intersectionality as a cross-cutting principle, and in line with humanitarian principles;

25. Underlines that the EU must leave no one behind in the protection of fundamental rights;

Recommendations

Change 9

Changed15.26. Calls for the EU and the Member States to ensure the true mainstreaming of LGBTIQ+ rights across all EU policies; calls for policies to cover grounds of multiple and intersectional discrimination, which can be based on, among other grounds, socio-economic status, age, race, religion, actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics or disability; calls for policies to consider the particular contexts of rural, peripheral and outermost regions;

27. Calls for the EU and the Member States to include SOGIESC in the grounds taken into account in the EU anti-discrimination legislation, in line with Parliament’s mandate on the proposal for a directive on standards for equality bodies;

Change 10

Changed17.28. Calls for the EU and the Member States to includeinvolve LGBTIQ+ persons in policymaking, including in the design and implementation of socio-economic and housing and education policies; calls on the Member States to tackle the cost of living and housing crisis, including by defining specific measures for the LGBTIQ+ people;

29. Calls on the Member States to implement the Directive on equal treatment in employment and occupation;

Change 11

Removed19. Calls on the Commission to monitor closely the implementation of EU law in the Member States and to launch infringement procedures in cases where the fundamental rights of LGBTIQ+ persons have been violated; calls on the Commission to ensure that Member States comply with the judgments of the CJEU, in particular on LGBTIQ+ persons and rainbow families crossing borders within the EU;

Added30. Welcomes the Commission’s proposal for a regulation on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition of decisions and acceptance of authentic instruments in matters of parenthood and on the creation of a European Certificate of Parenthood to protect the rights of all children by ensuring that their parental ties, including particularly same-sex parents, established in one Member State are recognised in all EU Member States; asks the Commission to explore the potential of other legal bases in the Treaties, notably Article 19 and 21 TFEU, to ensure that LGBTIQ+ persons’ marriages, partnerships, parenthood and family lives are fully and unconditionally recognised by all Member States without discrimination and obstacles to free movement;

Removed20. Calls on the Member States to expand coverage of all healthcare services, allowing LGBTIQ+ persons to seek specific care, including sexual and reproductive health and technologies;

Added31. Welcomes the Commission decision of 15 July 2021 to start legal action against Member States for violations of fundamental rights of LGBTIQ+ people; calls on the Commission to continue to monitor closely the implementation of EU law in the Member States and to launch infringement procedures in cases where the fundamental rights of LGBTIQ+ persons have been violated under Article 2 TEU, the Charter of Fundamental Rights or secondary legislation, where applicable; calls on the Commission to systemically have recourse to expedited procedures and applications for interim measures before CJEU;

Removed21. Urges the Commission and the Member States to adopt measures to combat discrimination against LGBTIQ+ persons in the health sector;

Added32. Calls on the Commission to ensure that Member States comply with the judgments of the CJEU and ECtHR, by addressing cases of non-compliance using the actions under Article 260(2) TFEU and the Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation, in particular on LGBTIQ+ persons and rainbow families crossing borders within the EU;

Change 12

Changed22.33. Calls on theall Member States to provide greateradhere fundingto forthe gender-basedGuidelines violencefor servicesStrategies and forAction themPlans to support LGBTIQ+ victims,Enhance inLGBTIQ particularEquality LGBTIQ+as women,prepared addressingby theirthe needsLGBTIQ andEquality experiences;Subgroup;

Change 13

Removed23. Supports Parliament’s mandate in the framework of the negotiations on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act to minimise the biases and risks created for LGBTIQ+ persons, in particular in AI uses that include surveillance and facial recognition mechanisms;

Added34. Calls on the Member States to expand coverage of healthcare services, allowing LGBTIQ+ persons to seek specific care, including sexual and reproductive health and technologies; urges the Commission and the Member States to adopt measures to combat discrimination against LGBTIQ+ persons in the health sector;

Removed24. Calls for the EU to give access to asylum to LGBTIQ+ persons, including those from so-called safe countries;

Added35. Calls on the Member States to provide greater funding for the provision of services for victims of gender-based violence and for them to support LGBTIQ+ victims, in particular LGBTIQ+ women, addressing their specific needs and experiences;

Removed25. Calls on the Commission to monitor the impacts and fund CSOs investigating the anti-gender movement, in order to effectively address it;

Added36. Recalls the need to ensure that facial recognition and profiling technologies are guided by the principles of transparency, explainability, fairness, and accountability in order to address the biases and risks created for LGBTIQ+ people;

Removed26. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to define and criminalise hate speech, hate crimes and violence motivated by SOGIESC bias, including online;

Added37. Calls for the EU to give access to asylum to LGBTIQ+ persons, including those from third countries classified as safe countries;

Removed27. Calls on the Commission to push Member States to ban ‘conversion practices’ on the grounds of SOGIESC;

Added38. Calls on the Commission to ensure support for LGBTIQ+ equality in action under the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund, as announced in the LGBTIQ Equality Strategy 2020-2025, and include said support in the Work Programme 2023-2025;

Added39. Calls on the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) to swiftly finalise its practical guidance on applicants with SOGIESC and for Member States to then adhere to this guidance;

Added40. Calls on the Commission to monitor the impacts and fund CSOs and academic projects investigating the anti-gender movement, in order to effectively address it;

Added41. Calls on the Commission and Member States to draw from the empirical and systematic knowledge built by CSOs and academic researchers when designing policies and programmes to support LGBTIQ+ people in Europe and around the world;

Added42. Calls for the Union and Member States to recognise actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics as bias-motivations; calls on the Commission and the Member States to address hate speech, hate crimes and violence motivated by SOGIESC bias, including online; welcomes the Commission’s initiative to extend the list of EU crimes in Article 83(1) TFEU to hate speech and hate crimes, which would allow for establishing minimum rules concerning the definition of criminal offences and sanctions applicable in all EU Member States; highlights the need to ensure a robust EU criminal law response to hate speech and hate crime; strongly regrets that almost two years have passed since the publication of the Commission communication and that the Council has made no progress on it, even though it was able to swiftly expand the list of EU crimes for other purposes; regrets such inaction in the light of the increase in hate speech and hate crimes; reiterates its call on the Council to work diligently towards a consensus so that the Commission can initiate the second stage of the procedure;

Added43. Urges the Commission to take forward a programme of work to raise awareness and encourage the reporting of SOGIESC bias-motivated hate crimes; urges the Commission and the Member States to ensure police and judicial officers receive training on LGBTIQ+ issues, to better support LGBTIQ+ people and adequately investigate and prosecute cases of hate crimes;

Added44. Calls on the Commission to explore the EU legal framework and the possible avenues that could be followed to counter and ban conversion practices at EU level, and push Member States to ban ‘conversion practices’ on the grounds of SOGIESC;

45. Calls for a ban on genital mutilation, in particular intersex genital mutilation and female genital mutilation;

Change 14

Removed29. Calls for a ban on forced abortions and on forced sterilisations; underlines the importance of LGBTIQ+ persons’ autonomy and physical and mental health;

Added46. Calls on Member States to continue to exchange best practices on safeguarding the fundamental rights of intersex children;

Added47. Calls for a ban on forced abortions and on forced sterilisations; underlines the importance of LGBTIQ+ persons’ right to self-determination, autonomy and physical and mental health; underlines that the position of Parliament on the proposal for a directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence includes adding FGM, IGM and forced sterilisation to the list of EU crimes;

Added48. Calls on the Member States to recognise marriage and parenthood of same-gender couples for the purposes of exercising rights derived from EU law, as required by the CJEU;

Added49. Calls on the Member States to put in place accessible legal gender recognition legislation and procedures, with the support of the Commission;