From daviss@columbia.edu Sun Dec 19 20:22:38 1993 Date: Sun, 5 Dec 1993 00:38:37 EST From: Stephen Davis To: Multiple recipients of list GLB-NEWS Subject: European Paliament supports nondiscrimination [1]From: heinv@hacktic.nl (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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- # Hein Verkerk (heinv@hacktic.nl) | ____ | Chasing prize-winning plummers # # fax: +31 20 6251849 | \ / | and catholic pets.... # # voice:+31 20 6248186 | \/ | (Yes they do exist !) # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------