Subject: European Paliament supports nondiscrimination

From: Stephen Davis <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 5 Dec 1993 00:38:37 EST

[1]From: [email-masked] (heinv)
[1] european parliament
Date: Tue Nov 30 13:36:23 EST 1993
Organization: Hack-Tic, networking for the masses
Lines: 41
Keywords: equal treatment gay/lesbian staff
     
European Parliament decides on non discrimination measures for gays and
lesbians.
     
Friday November 19th the European parliament amended a proposal of the
European Commission on equal treatment of female officials of the European
Institutions and other personnel. The Parliament explicitly added sexual
orientation, health status and handicaps as qualities that are not allowed
grounds for discrimination in the European Communities staff policies.
     
The Commission proposal is a -rather late- implementation of the directives
on equal treatment. Commissioner Padraig Flynn stated that the Commission
was pleased with this addition as far as it refers to sexual orientation.
"In order to avoid any misunderstanding I should say that the Commission
sets its face clearly against any discrimination in so far as recruitment
or career development are concerned. The Commission does not however intend
to make a proposal at this stage to deal with what might be called family
rights embodied in the Staff Regulations. He added however that with
regards to the other elements (health status and handicaps) that " the
Commission unfortunately cannot accept a blanket reference to non-discrimi-
nation with regard to health or handicap. But the Commission will continue
the work towards the most open policy possible,"
     
By adopting this non-discrimination clause for the staff of the European
Institutions the Parliament took over one of the recommendations of the
research project "Homosexuality, a Community issue", published earlier this
year.
     
In some months the European Parliament will deal with a report on the equal
treatment of gays and lesbians in the European Community as a whole,
prepared by Claudia Roth, German Green MEP.
     
Report made by: GroenLinks in the EG, Hein Verkerk Press Officer.
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