European Commission launches new initiative on binding standards for equality bodies

Following the EU Anti-racism Action Plan and the LGBTIQ+ and Roma Equality Strategies, in which the Commission raised the possibility of proposing EU-level legislation to strengthen the role and independence of equality bodies, the Commission has launched on 24^th July a new initiative through which it intends to strengthen equality bodies by setting minimum standards on how they operate in all grounds of discrimination and areas covered by EU equality rules.

The proposed initiative intends to set binding minimum standards for equality bodies, building on the 2018 Recommendation and also on other sources such as the General Policy Recommendation Nº2 of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) and the Paris Principles applied to National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs).

According to the Roadmap, the Standards could address the following areas: 

1. The mandate of equality bodies
2. Powers
3. Status and/or independence
4. Resources
5. Accessibility
6. Effectiveness
7. Data collection requirements
8. Cooperation and coordination among equality bodies and between equality bodies and other national and international bodies
9. Monitoring of equality bodies

The Roadmap sets out a consultation that aims to obtain complete and accurate data on the situation of equality bodies and the issues they are facing. This will enable the Commission to explore the different policy options and their economic impacts.

Equality bodies and Equinet will play a central role in the consultation:

• Key stakeholders: Equality bodies and Equinet, among others, are identified as key stakeholders.
• Dedicated interviews: The Commission will carry out dedicated interviews with each equality body.
• Meetings: The Roadmap includes meetings with Equinet, in addition to ENNHRI, FRA, ECRI, EIGE, the High-Level Group on Non-Discrimination, Equality, and Diversity, and its Sub-group on equality data, and with the expert group on the views of migrants in the field of asylum, migration, and integration.

Furthermore, an open public consultation that will run for a minimum of 12 weeks will be organised around Q4 2021.

At the end of the study and the consultation activities, an analytical document will be drawn up to present evaluative evidence concerning the current provisions on equality bodies (including the lack thereof) in some directives and how they are implemented, and an assessment of the different policy options and their economic impacts.

The Roadmap and Feedback links are available on the European Commission website.

The original article can be found here.