EU States Demand Proper LGBTI Strategy From EU Commission

19 EU member states express their commitment for LGBTI rights in the next EU legislature, to follow up on the EU Commission’s LGBT List of Actions 2016 – 2019.

The signatories to a statement (non-paper) prepared by Malta want to seize the momentum of recent years in fighting discrimination of LGBTI people, calling upon “the European Commission and Member States to build on this momentum and address the marginalisation and well-being of LGBTI persons.”

They believe a strategy is a better tool to ensure coordination amongst the different Commission directorates and that more efforts are necessary to change the reality for LGBTI people.

Malta, Czech Republic, Italy, France, Slovenia, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Greece, UK, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, and Cyprus have pledged support to the EU Commission efforts in adopting and implementing an EU LGBTI strategy.

A meeting on employment, social affairs, health and consumer policy from all EU member states (EPSCO Council) in December 2018 had concluded without a reference to LGBTI rights, after Poland and Hungary had requested to delete the reference.