The European Parliament’s committees on Civil Liberties (LIBE) and Women’s Rights (FEMM) discussed on Tuesday 25 May draft recommendations for the extension of the EU crime list (Article 83 TFEU) to all forms of hate speech and crimes based on origin, religion, gender or sexuality.
The European Commission has committed itself to presenting an initiative in this direction by the end of 2021. MEPs - led by the two rapporteurs, Malin Björk (The Left, Sweden) and Diana Riba i Giner (Greens/EFA, Spain) - stressed the urgency of this commitment.
Their draft recommendations present gender-based violence as “a serious form of crime and a widespread violation of fundamental rights in the Union” and draw attention to the rise of anti-gender equality movements “which are well organised and cross-border in nature”.
MEPs therefore call on the Commission to present a proposal for an EU Council decision defining gender-based violence as a new area of crime, and then “to use this new area of crime as a legal basis” for a directive to prevent and combat all forms of gender-based violence.
Both insist that criminal law measures “should be only one part of the eradication” of this form of violence and that the focus should be on different strategies to increase gender equality.
They also call on the Commission to appoint a coordinator against gender-based violence.
Their proposals were enthusiastically received by the various groups in the two parliamentary committees. Only the ECR group was openly hostile to the text, denouncing, through the voice of Jadwiga Wiśniewska (Poland), a “report tinged with ideology”.
In order to enlighten MEPs on the reasons for criminalising gender-based violence at European level, one of the members of the European Parliament’s research department, Cecilia Navarra, also intervened in this exchange of views.
Navarra recalled that such violence remains “a clear problem in all Member States”, and that its cost - both societal and economic - exceeds that of other crimes classified as particularly serious under Article 83, such as corruption and illegal drug trafficking.
She also emphasised the cross-border nature of this violence, stating that it is “a structural problem, rooted in gender inequalities, with drivers common to all Member States”.
Finally, Navarra recalled that, according to the results of a 2016 Eurobarometer survey, a large majority of European citizens believe that this form of violence should be a punishable crime.
To consult the draft recommendations: https://bit.ly/3wLqVnd (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)