(Equinet) Roundtable today on the future of equality legislation in Europe

Date of article: 14/10/2020

Daily News of: 14/10/2020

Country: EUROPE

Author:

Article language: en

Advancing the EU legal framework for equality and its implementation

During the last decades, and with the approval of the 2000 Directives (Race Equality Directive and the Framework Directive),  EU equality and anti-discrimination legislation grew from the ground of gender to other grounds such as ethnic and racial origin and age, disability, sexual orientation and religion or belief. The EU was progressively protecting more and more citizens from discrimination, harassment and violence.  

Nonetheless, EU anti-discrimination law does not equally protect all vulnerable groups in Europe. The  draft EU “Horizontal Directive”, pending since July 2008 aims to offer more symmetric protection to victims of discrimination and would extend the mandate of Equality Bodies to also cover discrimination based on disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief, age and the intersectional and multiple discrimination that results from the combination of these grounds. This would be a milestone for building a fairer and more equal Europe.  

Equality is a necessity and not a luxury. Strong laws are needed to ensure that all inhabitants of the EU can be protected, especially in times of crisis. We need to progress, taking into account the learnings from this year and the last decades, in constructing a strong, complete and inclusive legislative framework to ensure that no one is left behind.  

Online Roundtable: Future of Equality Legislation in Europe

On 14 October 2020 (14:00 – 16:00 CET) Equinet will organize an online roundtable, together with MEP Alice Bah Kuhnke, on the future of equality legislation in Europe. The primary objective will be to discuss the EU legal framework for equality and its implementation as well as advancing the adoption of the Horizontal Directive. The roundtable will bring together members of the European Parliament and representatives of Equality Bodies to assess the current state of the EU legal framework for equality and identify ways of improving it. By focusing on potential areas of improvement in implementing the existing equality directives, the focus will be particularly on the Horizontal Directive and identifying possible future actions to advance equality and non-discrimination in Europe. See the speakers bios here.

The event is open to the public and will be livestreamed on our Facebook page.

Please contact Jone Elizondo Urrestarazu (jone.elizondo@equienteurope.org) if you have any questions regarding this event.

Agenda

Download the Agenda here

Importance of Strong Equality Legislation for Civil Society

The online format of this event means that it’s shorter than we would have wished and we cannot include all voices on the day. In order not to leave the very important voices of Civil Society Organisations out of the conversation however, we have asked them to tell us why strong equality legislation is important to them…