On Wednesday 31 May, the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU will submit two proposals for political agreements (‘general approaches’) on the directives aimed at strengthening the equality bodies (see EUROPE 13188/24) to the Member States’ Deputy Ambassadors to the EU (Coreper I). The main changes compared to the European Commission versions concern their independence, resources, investigative powers and ability to take legal action.
Independence
Sweden therefore maintains the obligation for Member States to provide for transparent procedures for the selection, appointment and dismissal of members of staff, as well as limits on decision-making posts and, where appropriate, members of the Board of Directors.
Moreover, unlike the Commission’s text, it allows the bodies to belong to a ministry, specifying however that, in this case, their independence must be guaranteed.
Resources
As far as resources are concerned, the Swedish Presidency states that its text reflects the fact that “the Member States are in charge of their respective budgetary processes and the fact that the allocation of resources to Equality Bodies will be decided through such national budgetary processes”.
It replaced the term “budget” with “financial resources”. It also deleted the provisions stipulating that their budget should not “suffer cuts that are significantly higher than the average cuts to other public entities” and that new tasks must be accompanied by additional resources, as “they were considered too prescriptive”.
Powers of inquiry
With regard to their powers, the general guidelines replace the term “investigative powers” with “powers of inquiry”.
They also give Member States the option of designating another body to carry out the same powers of inquiry as those provided for Equality Bodies, but oblige them to “provide [the body] upon its request, with information on the results thereof”.
In addition, while Member States will be required to provide the information and documents necessary to establish whether discrimination has taken place, alleged perpetrators or third parties will not be obliged to do so.
Opinions, decisions and legal action
The draft political agreement provides for Member States to choose whether Equality Bodies can issue “non-binding opinions or binding decisions”, rather than “binding enforceable decisions”.
In addition, Stockholm maintains the organisations’ ability to act as a party in legal proceedings relating to one of their binding decisions and to submit observations to the courts.
However, in accordance with previous versions of the text negotiated in the working group, Member States will have to grant “at least one” of the following alternative options to organisations: - act on behalf of one or more victims; - act in support of one or more victims; - initiate proceedings in its own name, to “defend the public interest” (see EUROPE 13157/21).
Finally, the Presidency has significantly amended the provisions relating to indicators for monitoring the application of directives and has extended the transposition deadline to three years, compared with two previously.
General approaches: https://aeur.eu/f/74j ; https://aeur.eu/f/74l (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)