News
Platform writes to EU ministers asking them to adopt Article 19 anti-discrimination directive
[03/06/2010]

On June 2, Social Platform sent an open letter to EU Ministers of Employment and Social Affairs for the upcoming EPSCO Council meeting on June 7, asking them to adopt a strong law that is consistent with the Race Equality Directive.

We stressed how the anti-discrimination directive is crucial to protect the millions of people the Ministers represent in Europe from unfair treatment, and highlighted the progress made under the Spanish Presidency on the anti-discrimination directive, specifically on:
  • Article 2: Ensuring that discrimination or harassment by association is now included in the definition of discrimination, as recognized in the European Court of Justice case law
  • Article 3: Clarifying that member states may only provide differences of treatment on a person’s religion or belief in respect of admission to educational institutions but not on any of the other grounds
  • Recital 12b: Ensuring that the definition of harassment is now in line with previous directives
We also called for the upcoming Belgian presidency to advance the work of the Council and continue to enable civil society organisations to contribute to the negotiation process as the Spanish Presidency did.