EESC opinion: Equal treatment irrespective of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation

Key points:

The Committee

• welcomes the draft directive which broadly follows the recommendations made in its recent own-initiative opinion on anti-discrimination measures for areas outside employment and should lead to consistent standards of protection against discrimination on all Article 13 TEC grounds across the EU;
• believes, however, that in certain areas the directive offers lesser protection than that which already exists under the race equality and gender directives; this is the case in Article 2 which permits exceptions to the prohibition of discrimination, especially with regard to financial services; the EESC recommends that the same requirements for transparency, review and oversight should apply to age and disability as already apply to gender;
• considers that Article 3 defining the scope of the directive sets limits and allows wide exceptions that will undermine the effectiveness of the directive as a whole;
• believes that in Article 4 the duty on providers of goods and services to take measures in anticipation of the needs of persons with disabilities and to provide reasonable accommodation is too limited;
• notes that the equality bodies to be designated under Article 12, unlike bodies designated under the race and gender directives, would not cover the field of employment and recommends that this should be addressed by means of a new recital;
• regrets that the directive fails adequately to address the issue of multiple discrimination and calls upon the Commission to come forward with a recommendation on this issue.