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Practise what you preach, Ludford tells EU
July 18, 2001 12:00 AM
Liberal Democrat MEP for London Baroness Sarah Ludford has written to the new President of the EU Council of Ministers, Belgium's Liberal Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, to protest at the Council's double standards on gay rights.
"It is unacceptable for the Council to fail to implement equality laws that it rightly enforces in Member States. How can the EU institutions have credibility if they say one thing and do another?" said the MEP.
Last October, the Council - representing the 15 EU national governments - agreed, with the full support of the European Parliament, to a new law on equal opportunities. This bans discrimination at work against people on a number of grounds including sexual orientation. It must come into force in 2003, but only applies to Member States, not EU institutions.
But in its staff policy for administrators employed in its Brussels secretariat, the Council practises such discrimination. A Swedish employee claimed the "household allowance" and other benefits granted to married officials, since he has a gay partner with whom he had a registered partnership in Sweden that has the same legal effects as a marriage. But the Council refused to grant him these benefits, a refusal upheld by the European Court of Justice in a recent decision.
Sarah Ludford is outraged that the Council has refused a gay employee partner's benefits that a married official would receive. She is calling on all the EU institutions - the Council, the Commission, and the Parliament - to eradicate discrimination in their own personnel practices.
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