European institutions and the EU anti-discrimination policy

6. Early development of anti-discrimination law


The principle of non-discrimination of workers on the basis of nationality and gender had already been introduced in the 1957 Treaties of Rome in order to promote freedom of movement, equal pay, and other conditions. The Defrenne judgement, issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in 1976, confirmed that equal pay is part of the fundamental principles of the Community and can therefore be invoked by European citizens even in Member States where the legislation does not provide about it.

If the first developments of anti-discrimination are linked to the needs of economic integration, there was a step forward thanks to political integration with the transformation of the European Economic Community (EEC) into the European Union starting from 1992.

The Treaty of Amsterdam of 1997 gave the EU new powers in the field of combating discrimination (Article 13) and within a few years there was a strong expansion of the legislation.

Non-discrimination also became a fundamental right in the Nice Treaty of 2000 with the adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights which contains a section dedicated to equality. The Charter became legally binding in the EU with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009, acquiring the same legal effect as the EU treaties.