After the second EU election debate, everyone talked about von der Leyen leaving the door wide open to Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right Fratelli d’Italia. But does the Commission president also tolerate the party’s questionable stance on LGBTIQ+? Her answer was decidedly ... evasive.
The fight for women’s rights over the past fifty years is a story of progress. But that progress is under threat and full equality remains light years away, writes António Guterres.
War destruction offers a ‘chance’ to rebuild Ukraine in a way that considers its changing identity -- and with special attention for people with disabilities such as soldiers-amputees, writes Anna Romandash.
EU commitments to combat poverty are not credible if we let our biggest ethnic minority continue to live in slums without sewerage, transportation and schools, writes Shannon Pfohman. Shannon Pfohman is Policy and Advocacy Director at Caritas Europa. Most policymakers believe integrating …
This International Women's Day, as in years before, and likely in years to come, women are faced with a long fight ahead of them.
Current EU equality rules require establishing national equality bodies in all EU member states, writes Helena Dalli. Helena Dalli is the EU Commissioner for Equality, strengthening Europe's commitment to inclusion and equality and leading the fight against discrimination. These institutions have emerged …
Since independence in 1991, Kazakhstan’s state policy has aimed to provide legislative support to women, but despite progress, there is room for improvement, writes Lazzat Ramazanova.
The EU must get serious in tackling human rights abuses of people with disabilities, including minimum standards of personal assistance, writes Florian Saden.
The war against Ukraine and homemade policy decisions are causing disastrous conditions for disabled children living in institutions. The EU should ensure its humanitarian aid involves this vulnerable group while also supporting community-based disability support, writes Florian Sanden.
The Muslim world, and its religious leaders, have a duty to empower women to play crucial civil society roles if climate change is to be slowed and – possibly even reversed, writes Dr Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's controversial referendum about the so-called "Child Protection Act", which triggered infringement procedures by the European Commission over its measures targeting the LGBTQ+ community, may not be legally sound but makes considerable political sense, writes Zoltán Kovács.
We are looking into it. That is the answer that the Guardian of the Treaties - documents that enshrine the principles of equality and human rights into EU law - gave in response to a new Hungarian law that tramples those very rights by lumping together LGBTQI+ people in with paedophiles.
The European championship is a big deal for football fans. UEFA’s marquee event, outranked only by the World Cup. Yet you wouldn’t guess it this year. The build-up to the tournament, delayed for one year by the COVID-19 pandemic, has been muted in the extreme.
It has been a year since George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer, sparking global protests and renewed demands for the recognition of equality. What progress has Europe made on diversity? Corinna Horst, Audrey Flore-Ngomsik and Emma Rainey take a closer look.
The Istanbul Convention is a milestone in the fight against gender-based violence. We are determined to ensure full implementation and enforcement in our countries, write high-level signatories from seventeen European countries. Signatories are ministers from 16 European countries.** Today we mark the …
Racism runs deeper than individual acts of hate - it is embedded in the EU’s social, economic and political system. With the Anti-Racism Summit and National Action Plan Against Racism, the EU has a huge opportunity to truly tackle racism, but to do so it needs to tackle it structurally.
The EU bubble has a whiteness problem – and the green sector is complicit, write Chloé Mikolajczak and Marianna Tuokkola.
Two years ago, the county of Świdnik in Poland was declared an “LGBTI ideology-free zone”. Today, a group of lawmakers in the European Parliament have taken the initiative to declare the European Union an LGBTIQ freedom zone.
On International Women’s Day, a group of twenty Green MEPS call on the European Commission to propose a comprehensive and inclusive directive to prevent, respond to and end gender-based violence online and offline.
Female involvement in research and innovation is vital for ensuring sustainable and inclusive twin digital and green transitions, writes Mariya Gabriel.
As the European Commission is about to unveil the EU's new Strategy on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for the next decade, Krzysztof Pater writes about one of the areas where discrimination is still acutely felt – the right to vote, effectively denied to many persons with disabilities across Europe.
Today we often see an EU where the principle of subsidiarity is only a theoretical concept and regional autonomy is not taken into account. It is time for the Commission to step up its efforts and a first step could be to give the Minority Safepack initiative the attention it deserves, writes Harry Jansson.
Last Friday, and without much media coverage, the Guardian of the Treaties dealt the latest blow to European citizens' shot at direct democracy by rejecting a petition proposing a protection package for national minorities that had garnered 1.1 million signatures across the EU.
2020 did not bring significant progress for the agenda of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) and the COVID19 pandemic even caused significant setbacks for women's rights, writes Brigitta von Messling.
