Those who follow the UK news may be aware of the recent successful court case brought by a gay couple against the owners of a hotel who refused to allow them to stay in a double room. It was decided that the refusal amounted to ’direct discrimination’ and therefore a breach of UK law and was hailed a ’victory for equality’ by human rights commentators. It may suprise some readers to discover however, that this seemingly blatant example of discrimination would not amount to a breach of the law in many other Member States.

In fact, as EU law currently stands there is no protection for people discriminated against on the grounds of sexual orientation, age, disability and religion and belief outside of the employment area. This means there is no protection against discrimination in areas such as the access of goods and services (e.g. when booking a hotel room), health, education and social protection. This contrasts with the relatively longstanding protection for those discriminated against on the grounds of race or gender. In July 2008, the European Commission took action to address this protection gap by introducing a proposal for a new law that would extend the principle of equal treament outside the labour market.

Over two and half years later however, it has become clear that the progress towards equality for all is a slow and lengthy process and the Directive shows no signs of being adopted any time soon. A key stumbling block for the Directive is that it needs to be unanimously agreed upon by the Member States, many of whom continue to show a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the principle of equal treatment. As NGOs and individuals continue to lobby Member States to vote for the Directive, we must hope that their efforts are not in vain and that EU Equality law will soon be brought well and truly into the 21st century.

You can read the Proposal for the Directive in full here : http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ...

Photo :European Union,1995-2011