Commission’s 2013 priorities for equality and fundamental rights

 

On January 24 Social Platform members met with Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea, Director of Equality at the Commission and Paul Nemitz, Director of Fundamental Rights at the Commission. Mr. CIobanu-Dordea and Mr Nemitz shared priorities for 2013 within their areas. Here are some of the key points they highlighted:

Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea, Director DG Justice – Equality

  •     On Gender quotas for women on board’s: Member States have responded to the Commission’s proposals with questions on compliance with subsidiarity and proportionality. The Commission is responding that their proposal is in respect of the fundamental rights of the EU;
  •     On Article 19 equal treatment directive: the Commission will work with the Irish Presidency who aims to discuss the provisions on disability. There will be an opportunity to clarify to Member States the distinction between the Art 19 Directive and the Accessibility Act. The Commission has addressed the concerns by Members States on the Accessibility Act in the Impact Assessment and they are optimistic it will be adopted in June;
  •     On Roma issues: There will be Council recommendations on measures that will enhance Roma integration in the Member States, it will be a legislative proposal that will complement the annual report on the national Roma strategies and oblige Member States to debate and the Parliament to report on it;
  •     Violence against women: There will be a high-level roundtable with Commissioner Viviane Reding on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) including a policy paper released later this year elaborating both on the EU external and internal dimension of FGM. There will also be a report by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) on FGM in Member States;
  •     On the Multi-Annual Financial Framework: The Commission will try to limit the impact of the delay of the Council's decision on the MAFF; the PROGRESS strand includes allocation for civil society networks for 2013. It also includes a bridging for 2014 but it will be an open grants competition.
  •     Upcoming reports:

              – Annual report on Gender Equality (April)
              – Annual report on the Charter of Fundamental Rights (April)
              – Report on Women in Decision Making (April)
              – Report on the performance of the Member Staets on the Barcelona targets (2002) of childcare provision (April/May)
              – Report on the implementation for the recast directive dealing with gender equality in employment – the report will also serve as a guidance to Member States and social partners regarding equal-pay
              –  Report on the Race Equality Directive including some attention on Roma discrimination cases.

Paul Nemitz, Director DG Justice – Fundamental Rights

  •     Data protection: An important focus for the Commission is to get high level protection for citizens and their control over their data;
  •     Implementation of the Racial Equality Framework Directive: from 1st Dec 2013 it will be possible to bring infringement and the report on the directive will weight future priorities and possibilities;
  •     Homophobic law in Lithuania: the Commission is acting on the proposed law by Lithuania on prohibiting broadcasting content on LGBT which is not in line with EU law;
  •     Exclusion of blood donors: the Commission is having a dialogue with the Council of Europe to ensure that the criteria for excluding blood donors is not discriminatory (DG SANCO in lead);
  •     Fundamental Rights Annual Report: the key issues and step forward this year is the real adoption by the Charter of Fundamental Rights by Member States national courts and jurisprudence
  •     The Fundamental Rights Charter is a catalogue of values that cannot all give rise to rights, it is only applicable for EU institutions and when Member States implement EU law and EU funds. Social rights is a key issue to realise ones fundamental rights, Member States rejected the inclusion of police cooperation and social rights in FRA’s next Multi-Annual Framework with the reference to social rights already being the mandate of Eurofound. This is a political issue for civil society organisations to address.

Members can access the full minutes of the working group meeting in the Members Room