Commission revives anti-discrimination directive after 17-year standstill
The Equal Treatment Directive would instruct EU countries to implement national laws addressing anti-discrimination and ensure equal access to social rights, education, goods and services, and protection on grounds of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.
The bill, which was originally presented in 2008, has been stuck in the Council for nearly two decades, and the European Commission signalled earlier this year that it intended to scrap it altogether.
Now, as first reported by Euractiv, the Commission has reversed its decision, saying it "has decided to maintain for further political discussion the proposal for the Equal Treatment Directive," a Commission spokesperson said on Wednesday. Back and forth In its 2025 work programme released early this year, the Commission listed the proposal amongst legislation the executive was looking to scrap, citing that "the proposal is blocked and further progress is unlikely."
In May, however, Equality Commissioner Hadja Lahbib told dismayed lawmakers in the Parliament's civil liberties committee that the Commission would take feedback from MEPs into account.
While the Parliament's political leaders endorsed the Commission's plans to withdraw, the committee chairs in June urged the executive to keep it alive. A month later, 14 EU countries signed a letter, asking the Commission to drop its plans to withdraw the proposal.
Eventually, the Commission budged and is now keeping the directive on the agenda, "having considered the supportive position expressed by the Parliament and by a large majority of member states in the Council," a Commission spokesperson told Euractiv.
"We will therefore redouble our efforts in supporting the [Danish] presidency and the member states with all possible means to help find an agreement on this important proposal." Movement in December The Danish presidency is expected to bring the issue to the agenda when EU employment and social ministers meet in early December.
"We will do our best to bring progress and continue bilateral consultations with the countries still opposed," Danish Minister of Social Affairs, Sophie Hæstorp Andersen, told MEPs in the Parliament's employment committee last week.
A February briefing from the Parliament's research service suggests that many EU countries have improved their legislation in the 17 years that have passed since the original proposal. Germany, Czechia, and Italy are understood to be the three main holdouts in the Council.
Parliamentarians have been celebrating the U-turn, taking credit for it. "Thanks to progressive political forces refusing to accept the Commission's idea of withdrawing the legislation, we managed, after much persistent lobbying, to get the Commission to change its mind," Green Swedish lawmaker Alice Bah Kuhnke told Euractiv.
"It is a result of months of hard work from myself and fellow negotiators," centre-right MEP Maria Walsh wrote on her website.
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- Euractiv
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5 hours ago
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Brussels might scrap digital laws to appease US, warns top EU lawmaker
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Euractiv
6 hours ago
- Euractiv
Europe's humiliation is a comms strategy – and that's the problem
Nicolai von Ondarza is head of the EU/Europe Research Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP, a German government-funded think tank) in Berlin and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House. The EU-US trade deal announced last week has received an icy reception across the continent. French Prime Minister Bayrou decried a " submission" and many commentators lamented a humiliation for Europe. But much like the promises of 5% of defence spending at June's NATO summit, the humiliation has more to do with the performative concessions of European leaders. These embarrassing exhibitions of self-debasement allow Trump to trumpet his victories, but they sting less under closer inspection. Viewed side by side, the NATO summit and the EU-US trade demonstrate a strategic communication of subservience. At NATO, Secretary General Mark Rutte was unabashed in his deference , with texts to Trump that the American president later publicised . 'Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win,' Rutte fawned . The whole summit was designed around Trump's notoriously short attention span. It ended with the pledge from member states to spend 3.5% of GDP on defence, topped up with 1.5% on defence-related spending – an invitation for creative accounting that gave Trump the 5% he so desired. But eyebrow-raising numbers aside, the announcements at the NATO summit will build a stronger European defence. The European increases in defence spending will end up boosting national defence spending. So long as this is done wisely , this will lay the ground for Europe to assert greater control over its defence. In addition, much of the 1.5% top-up will pay for infrastructure investments that were planned anyway. Contrary to the presentation as a gift to Trump, European investment in European defence could significantly reduce the dependence on the US, at least for conventional deterrence. The strategy of subservience was even more obnoxious with Sunday's trade deal. Whilst America's military might is integral to European security, the EU prides itself on its strength as a global economic power, with the EU27's common trade policy conducted by the EU Commission. But over months of tariff threats from Trump, with ever-changing deadlines, the EU – at the behest of its member states – chose to delay retaliation again and again. The Union has now not only accepted a deal that sees tariffs rise to 15% on many goods (without equivalent rises of EU tariffs for the US), but also made investment promises to the tune of €550bn into the US, pledged to ramp up purchases of US fossil energy, and acquiesced to buy defence equipment and AI chips for more than €700bn in the next three years. No reciprocal engagements have been made from the US side. And yet in public, the EU is following Trump's line that the deal is a big win. For Trump, it is surely that. But for the EU, it looks like a capitulation. Not quite. What we see is the same comms strategy that lets Trump show he got big wins by presenting big numbers. Look more closely and these performative concessions consist either of investments Europeans already planned (e.g. AI chips, LNG, defence equipment), and/or lofty, non-binding promises that the EU cannot enforce as the choices must be taken by private companies. Even with the higher tariffs on cars, trade expert Sam Lowe argues , production in Europe is more attractive than in North America when the higher input costs from Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminium are taken into account. But rather than hi l ghlight the President's bluster, European leaders – both national and in the EU – are actively choosing to let Trump have his win. This ostentatious humiliation may well bring Europe some breathing space in the short term. It has already avoided the worst-case scenarios: by keeping the US on board with NATO and preventing the 30% tariffs Trump had been ready to deploy. And the costs are not as high as the public wins for Trump suggest. Yet the political price may be steep: Europe has signalled to its citizens and the world that it is willing to bow to Trump's pressure. This unappealing strategy will only be worthwhile if European leaders use the breathing space it gives them to effectively and jointly reduce dependency on the US. Failure to do so will be a resounding catastrophe.
