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European Anti-discrimination Legal Network

PRESENTATION

As of 2015, the European Network of Legal Experts in the Non-Discrimination field has been replaced by a new European Network of Legal Experts in Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination, managed by MPG together with Human European Consultancy and Utrecht University. 

The Migration Policy Group and Human European Consultancy have established and manage a Network of independent legal experts in the non-discrimination field that provides independent information and advice on the implementation of the Article 19 TFEU anti-discrimination Directives in all 27 Member States. In addition to the EU Member States, the candidate countries Turkey, Croatia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the EFTA countries Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway are also part of the Network.

Cooperation with governmental and non-governmental stakeholders may facilitate the expeditious and timely gathering of information on developments in law and policies. It facilitates dialogue on how these developments are to be interpreted (in conformity with EU law or not) and how certain legal problems can be best addressed.

The quality of the information is crucially important for the proper implementation of the EU directives.

The network, 33 country experts for each of the EU Member States, EFTA countries and candidate countries, is run by a management team led by the Migration Policy Group and Human European Consultancy. An Executive Committee supports the Coordinator and Deputy Coordinator to ensure the scientific quality of the work. The Executive Committee consists of senior experts covering the five grounds of discrimination and a highly qualified senior expert in EU law.

What we do

The task of the Network is to produce information, advice and reports.

The information includes:

  • The transposition of the Racial Equality Directive and the Employment Equality Directive
  • Their practical implementation
  • National initiatives in the field on anti-discrimination legislation and related policy developments
  • The impact of national court rulings that have the effect of establishing jurisprudence on the level of protection provided by national law against discrimination
  • The potential conformity of national developments with the requirements of Community law
  • The impact of judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights on national law

The Network produces:

Management team

  • Coordinator: Piet Leunis, Human European Consultancy
  • Deputy Coordinator, Content Manager: Isabelle Chopin, Migration Policy Group
  • Project Management Assistant: Andrea Trotter, Human European Consultancy
  • Researcher/Editor: Catharina Germaine-Sahl, Migration Policy Group

Executive Committee

  • Lilla Farkas, Migration Policy Group (race and ethnic origin including Roma)
  • Mark Freedland, Oxford University (age)
  • Isabelle Rorive, Free University Brussels (religion and belief)
  • Christa Tobler, Leiden University and Basel University (European law)
  • Renata Uitz, Central European University Budapest (sexual orientation)
  • Lisa Waddington, Maastricht University  (disability)

Country Experts

  • Austria: Dieter Schindlauer
  • Belgium: Emmanuelle Bribosia
  • Bulgaria: Margarita Ilieva
  • Croatia: Lovorka Kusan
  • Cyprus: Corina Demetriou
  • Czech Republic: Pavla Boucková
  • Denmark: Pia Justesen
  • Estonia: Vadim Poleshchuk
  • Finland: Rainer Hiltunen
  • France: Sophie Latraverse
  • FYR of Macedonia: Biljana Kotevska
  • Germany: Matthias Mahlmann
  • Greece: Athanassios Theodoridis
  • Hungary: András Kádár
  • Iceland: Gudrun D. Gudmundsdottir
  • Ireland: Orlagh O’Farrell
  • Italy: Chiara Favilli
  • Latvia:  Anhelita Kamenska
  • Liechtenstein: Wilfried Marxer
  • Lithuania: Gediminas Andriukaitis
  • Luxembourg: Tania Hoffmann
  • Malta: Tonio Ellul
  • Netherlands: Rikki Holtmaat
  • Norway: Else Leona McClimans
  • Poland: Lukasz Bojarski
  • Portugal: Manuel Malheiros
  • Romania: Romanita Iordache
  • Slovakia: Janka Debreceniov
  • Slovenia: Neza Kogovsek
  • Spain: Lorenzo Cachón Rodríguez
  • Sweden: Per Norberg
  • Turkey: Dilek Kurban
  • United Kingdom: Aileen McColgan

LATEST PRODUCTS

Browse all publications from the European Anti-discrimination Legal Network


EUROPEAN ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LEGAL NETWORK WORK IN USE

European Network of Independent Legal Experts in the field of non-discrimination highlighted as a key actor by European Parliament for protecting LGBTI rights

LGBTIA new study released at the request of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, presents an overview of problems faced by LGBTI persons as identified in EU studies, along with EU actions taken in this area to date. It focuses in particular on the areas of Equality (including in the fields of employment, health, education, access to goods and services and housing); specific trans and intersex issues; diverse families and freedom of movement; freedom of assembly and expression; hate speech, hate crime and violence; and fleeing homophobia and transphobia. Based on these findings, it proposes recommendations with a timeline which could be included in a roadmap for equality on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.

This study reviews each of the actors that would be involved in the concrete actions recommended for an EU roadmap in the area of safeguarding LGBTI rights, including the European Network of Independent Legal Experts in the field of non-discrimination which has recently published a report on ‘Discrimination against trans and intersex people on the grounds of sex, gender identity and gender expression‘, providing important insight into questions of gender identity and gender expression.

To read the European Parliament study, please see here.

To read the thematic report, please see here.

Report welcomed by MEPs of all political parties in Brussels

Leading LGBT campaigner, Labour’s Michael Cashman, who co-chairs the European Parliament’s LGBT Intergroup, said “This report is a great piece of work, and I am really proud as a UK MEP that Scotland is the only area in Europe that has enacted legislation protecting both trans and intersex people against bias-motivated violence.

“However, this report must become an impulse for real change on the ground, legal commitments, and a binding strategy for LGBT rights in the EU. This requires decisive political leadership, and we must seize this opportunity to end the everyday discrimination experienced by trans and intersex people in the EU. I turn to the European Commission, and hope it will wait no longer to issue proposals in this direction.”

To read the report, please see here.

EUROPEAN ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LEGAL NETWORK WORK IN CONTEXT

Discrimination is “alive and well” in France

On 10 April the French national statistics institute INSEE published a compilation of 11 different studies measuring the influence of gender, ethnic origin, sexual orientation and health status on inequalities in different areas of society. The interesting conclusions that can be drawn from this research include the existence of striking differences in treatment that can’t be explained by other factors than discrimination, in areas such as access to social housing, employment and education. The general conclusion which is drawn is that the white, heterosexual male aged 30-50 remains privileged compared to all other groups of people in today’s society.

graphs_for-sliderThese data corroborate previous findings of the European Network of Legal Experts in the non-discrimination field, such as for instance those of the recent thematic report Discrimination in housing, authored by Nicolas Bernard and Julie Ringelheim in 2013. It also demonstrates the importance of having relevant equality data to be able to prove the existence of discrimination, and to raise an effective fight against it. This is the main aim of the Equality Data Initiative of the Open Society Foundations, MPG and ENAR, which focuses on equality data collection in seven European countries, including France.

New UK Immigration Bill could give rise to discrimination in housing

The UK Joint Committee on Human Rights has published a report scrutinizing the Government’s proposed Immigration Bill, which was introduced in the House of Commons on 10 October. The report highlights that the provisions of the bill which would bar some people from renting or occupying property in the private rented property sector based on their immigration status could give rise to discrimination on the grounds of racial or ethnic origin in the field of housing. This same conclusion was made during the Legal Seminar organised by the European Network of Legal Experts in the non-discrimination field, managed by MPG, in cooperation with the European Network of Legal Experts in the field of gender equality, held in Brussels on 29 November.

Discrimination in Housing - EN FINAL.pdf - Adobe ReaderThe proposed bill, whose official aim is to “make the UK the least attractive destination for illegal migrants”, would prohibit property owners from renting private property to illegal migrants as part of a series of provisions aiming at excluding them from public and private services. The report underlines however, as did participants of the recent Legal Seminar, the heightened risk of discrimination on racial grounds in the private tenancy sector caused by this proposed provision.

During one of the workshops of the Seminar, the potential consequences of the Immigration Bill were explored by one of the speakers, Ms Sue Lukes, who presented her experiences from working with issues related to housing for migrants. During the same workshop, the findings of a recent publication of the Network, Discrimination in Housing, were presented by one of its co-authors Julie Ringelheim, including the discrimination faced in many European countries by vulnerable groups in the specific field of housing. Discrimination on the ground of racial or ethnic origin is prohibited in the field of housing by the Racial Equality Directive and its transposing legislation in all EU Member States, including the UK Equality Act 2010.


EVENTS

Are you looking for past news and events related to the European Anti-discrimination Legal Network?

News and events prior to 2012 are available in our archive.

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