On Monday 10 November, the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) held public hearings on the new European Union LGBTIQ+ Equality Strategy 2026-2030, presented in October by the European Commission (see EUROPE 13727/29).
At a time when anti-gender rhetoric is gaining ground, the speakers called for the acceleration of legislative action and the application of European law.
Francesco Zoia Bolzonello, a member of the cabinet of the Commissioner for Equality, Hadja Lahbib, said that the Strategy “aims to protect and strengthen fundamental freedoms” in the face of “anti-gender and anti-LGBTIQ backlash”.
Protection, empowerment and the mobilisation of society as a whole are its component actions.
The challenge, according to Francesco Zoia Bolzonello, is to respond to the observed regression, and the strategy “is never against anyone”, but aims to ensure that “when LGBTIQ people feel in danger, the Union is able to respond”. The Commission pointed out that there had been an increase in resources dedicated to equality, tackling violence and citizen participation.
According to Pieter Cannoot, Assistant Professor of Law and Diversity at Ghent University, there has been “a visible shift from a strategy focused on drafting legislative standards to one of consolidation and implementation”. An understandable approach “given the political constraints”, but one that reflects “a lower level of legislative ambition” than the previous strategy, in his view.
The academic calls for lessons to be learned from the case law of the Court of Justice on gender identity and parentage of rainbow families, to avoid blind spots in European protection.
This vigilance was also evident among representatives of civil society. According to Katrin Hugendubel, Advocacy Director of the European branch of the international lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex association, ILGA-Europe, the European Union is faced with “laws that are not designed to protect, but to marginalise”.
She pointed out that, for the first time in the EU, a Pride organiser was facing criminal prosecution (in Hungary, editor’s note) (see EUROPE 13670/17), which required “a clear political response” and the use of “all existing tools”, in particular European case law and monitoring of the rule of law.
Miltos Pavlou, Senior Manager of the Social Research Programme at the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), presented the latest data (see EUROPE 13410/29), stating that the EU is “at a crossroads between progress and violence”.
Despite a gradual improvement in social acceptance, violence and distrust of the authorities remain high, particularly among trans, intersex and non-binary people. He called for a “zero tolerance policy” against hate crimes and for real work to be done to make the national equality authorities effective. (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)