With its Presidency of the Council of the EU coming to an end in a month’s time, Sweden has prepared a progress report on the horizontal directive on equal treatment (see EUROPE 13165/6) ahead of the meeting of the Member States’ deputy ambassadors to the EU (Coreper I) on Wednesday 31 May.
While disagreements remain, Stockholm intends to organise a political debate on the subject at the Employment and Social Policy Council (EPSCO) on 12 June, in the hope of “breaking the deadlock”.
The directive, which requires unanimity, has been blocked in the EU Council since 2008. The Swedish Presidency explains that hesitations remain over the scope and the definition of discrimination. For example, one delegation would like the directive to also cover “gender identity and gender expression alongside sexual orientation”, while another is calling for the provisions on age to be better defined.
Moreover, measures relating to accessibility for disabled people continue to be subject to disagreements (see EUROPE 13071/17). On this matter, EU countries have to strike a balance between compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the costs of making these accommodations (see EUROPE 13032/16).
In an attempt to get the Member States to agree, Stockholm is planning to ask the social affairs ministers “what should be done to unblock the negotiations”. In particular, they will be invited to express their views on “the three main outstanding issues: legal certainty, subsidiarity and implementation costs”.
View the progress report: https://aeur.eu/f/74m
View the preparatory document for the political debate: https://aeur.eu/f/74n (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)