European institutions and the EU anti-discrimination policy
7. Anti-discrimination norms
In the 1990s various interest groups lobbied for the prohibition of discrimination enshrined in EU law to be extended to other areas such as: race and ethnic origin, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, age, and disability.
The first anti-discrimination directive introduced in European legislation was the Racial Equality Directive (2000/43/EC) which introduced the principle of equal treatment between people regardless of race or ethnic origin in the field of employment, but also in access to goods and services and in access to social protection (healthcare, education, and housing).
Shortly after, the Employment Equality Directive or Framework Employment Directive (2000/78/EC) was adopted which included the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of religion, disability , age, and sexual orientation in the workplace.
In 2004 the Gender Goods and Services Directive (2004/113/EC) extended the protection against discrimination based on sex to this sector. However, the protection against this type of discrimination does not match exactly that recognised by the Racial Equality Directive, as it guarantees equal treatment only for access to goods and services but not in the field of social protection.
Furthermore, the three anti-discrimination directives did not oblige Member States to use the criminal code to sanction discriminatory acts. That is why in 2008 an EU Council Framework Decision was introduced which obliged all EU Member States to provide for criminal sanctions in the case of inciting violence or hatred on the basis of race, skin colour, origin, religion or creed, ethnicity, and nationality as well as the dissemination of racist or xenophobic material and the excuse, denial, or trivialisation of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity against these groups. Member States were also forced to consider racist or xenophobic intent as aggravating.
The summary table presented in 2012 by Social Platform in a hearing in the European Parliament shows the areas covered by European legislation:
Source: Pierre Baussand, Social Platform 2012
Since European legislation has ended up ensuring uneven protection against discrimination, the European Commission has proposed a new "horizontal directive" to standardise the guarantees provided for by the law both with respect to the grounds for discrimination and the areas of application.
The European Parliament gave its broadly positive opinion on the directive in a resolution adopted on 2 April 2009. However, the horizontal directive has been blocked in the Council since then due to opposition from seven member countries, including Germany.
Indeed, the Lisbon Treaty introduced a horizontal clause to ensure that the fight against discrimination is integrated into all EU policies and actions (Art.10 of the TFEU). For this reason, the ordinary legislative procedure (COD) with qualified majority approval is no longer enough to make regulatory changes. A special legislative procedure (APP) must be used: the Council acts unanimously, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.
In the Commission's programmes of 2016 and 2019, the Anti-Discrimination Directive was back in the list of EU priorities, but the necessary unanimity for its approval has not been reached yet.