MEPs have voted to declare the EU an “LGBTIQ freedom zone” in a symbolic protest against discriminatory policies promoted in Poland and Hungary where regions have set themselves against the “ideology” of equality.
Two years after the first local authority in Poland declared itself an ‘‘LGBTIQ-free zone”, the European parliament adopted its resolution by 492 votes in favour, 141 against and 46 abstentions.
Among those who opposed the resolution were eleven members of the European people’s party, the centre-right grouping the parliament in which Angela Merkel’s CDU sits.
MEPs said in their resolution that people “in the EU should enjoy the freedom to live and publicly show their sexual orientation and gender identity without fear of intolerance, discrimination or persecution”.
“Authorities at all levels of governance across the EU should protect and promote equality and the fundamental rights of all, including LGBTIQ persons,” the resolution added.
More than 100 Polish regions, counties and municipalities have adopted resolutions since March 2019 declaring themselves to be free from LGBTIQ ideas.
Local governments have pledged to refrain from encouraging tolerance towards LGBTIQ people and to cut financial assistance to organisations promoting non-discrimination and equality.
The MEPs’ resolution also noted the deteriorating situation in Hungary. In November 2020, the town of Nagykáta adopted a resolution banning the “dissemination and promotion of LGBTIQ propaganda”.
Addressing the parliament ahead of the vote, Terry Reintke, a German MEP in the Greens group, said the chamber’s resolution was a “first step”.
She said: “You call us lunatics. You call us an irrelevant minority. You call us perverts. You call us an ideology. When all we ask for is equality.
How globalisation has transformed the fight for LGBTQ+ rights – podcast
Read more
“You paraphrase books written thousands of years ago to justify your hate. You take away our rights to distract from the shortcomings of your own politics.
“You scapegoat our communities when all we ask for is safety. You attack our families. You tell people we are a threat. You deny us the right to be who we want to be when all we ask is freedom. But we will not give up just because you keep attacking us.”
“This declaration might only be a first step,” Reintke said. “We know our lives are still in danger, our rights restricted, our freedoms brutally suffocated in far too many places in the European union. But it is a step. We are many, we are everywhere and we are strong.”
The European commission has recently rejected applications for funding under its twinning programme from Polish towns that have adopted so called “LGBT free zone” resolutions.
As part of Thursday’s resolution, MEPs called on the EU’s executive branch to go further by launching infringement proceedings through the European court of justice and cutting funding to central governments.
The vote came as Clément Beaune, France’s European affairs minister, who came out in December, revealed that Poland’s right-wing government had threatened to cancel his meetings during a recent trip to the country if he visited a village that had declared itself an “LGBT-ideology free zone”.
Ursula von der Leyen says Poland’s ‘LGBT-free zones’ have no place in EU
Read more
During a two-day trip to Poland this week, Beaune, a close ally of the French president Emmanuel Macron, had planned to stop in the village of Krasnik to highlight its discriminatory policies.
“They didn’t want me to go there. They didn’t physically prevent me, it was political pressure,” Beaune told France Inter radio.
The minister said he was informed that “if I went there, there wouldn’t be any official meetings during the trip”.
Beaune vowed to return to the country and travel to one of the anti-gay zones. “I think it’s serious, but I don’t want to cause a controversy with a government,” Beaune said. “What is very serious is the situation on the ground, not my personal case.”
Свежие комментарии