The fundamental rights of LGBTI people need to be a core part of the accession process and EU institutions need to work with the authorities in each accession country to ensure the gaps are tackled and important pieces of legislation are advanced over the next year.

The EU enlargement process has leverage and needs to be fully used to support the adoption of important legislation protecting the fundamental rights of LGBTI people, as well as call out when governments advance laws that go against EU principle of fundamental rights, democracy and rule of law.

Over the last year, not only have we seen the worrying trends of governments challenging the rule of law, an increase in LGBTI phobic hate speech by politicians and religious leader continuing and foreign influence being exerted to challenge advances on human rights continue, but in a number of candidate and accession countries, ruling parties have been pushing legislation forward that is actively limiting the human rights of vulnerable groups including LGBTI people. We have also seen governments putting forward Russian style foreign agent laws in Georgia and Republika Srpska in Bosnia- Herzegovina. LGBTI rights are being used to polarise society, often to distract from a broader undermining of democracy and the rule of law in these countries and other more important socio- economic and political issues.

The annual enlargement report process is a key moment to remind governments of the criteria that need to be met and point out where advancement on rule of law and the protection of fundamental rights are needed to advance the process. While in some countries progress has been too slow and the EU should ensure that important legislative processes are finally seen through (such as the legal gender recognition in Montenegro and partnership recognition for same-sex partners and a new hate crimes legislation in Ukraine), it is important to be very clear that the attempts to put forward laws that actively cancel EU fundamental rights cannot be tolerated and will need to lead to a reconsideration of the status granted by the EU.

It is especially important in this context that the EU insist that the protection of LGBTI people’s human rights are a core part, as they are often falling behind the requirements. The recommendations regarding the human rights of LGBTI people in the EU enlargement reports are key in holding governments accountable to the commitments made. This also means putting an emphasis on ensuring proper implementation of the laws protecting and granting access to fundamental rights. It is key that the EU makes this a priority in all the countries, also by supporting initiatives for training and education.

Through the region of all enlargement and candidate countries, we can clearly see how foreign forces are gaining influence and are challenging alliance with EU values and fundamental rights. The strength of disinformation and anti-LGBTI sentiment being spread across the Western Balkans region, particularly in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and North Macedonia, has intensified even more since Russia’s war in Ukraine, with LGBTI people and civil society as targets of smear campaigns, hatred and hostility, often originating from the government level, pro-Russia forces and religious leaders. We can see the anti-gender movement gaining more ground, spreading countless hostile and hateful statements and protests, disturbing public order and democratic processes. Politicians, religious leaders and newly formed organisations were among the most common perpetrators of hate speech, which translates into actual hate and violence against LGBTI people.

The anti-rights movement, which is well funded and coordinated, has taken root strongly in the Western Balkans region in the last years. In order to stand against this increasing influence of anti- gender forces and foreign governments trying to undermine the EU rule of law and democracy, strong civil society organisations are key as they continue to build social acceptance for fundamental rights, support vulnerable groups and are a corner stone of democratic societies.

The fact that LGBTI organisations in the Western Balkans have seen EU support decrease has further weakened their work and social cohesion in those countries. A number of LGBTI organisations had to close, and many at brink of closing, while they are facing organised attacks against their physical spaces, as well as against the legal framework which protects and guarantees their equal rights. The EU must be a supporting partner to these organisations, including their views meaningfully in consultations and negotiations, modelling civil dialogue as an important part of a democratic society, and continuing to support LGBTI organisations in the region through funding in the extremely fragile context.

LGBTI activists from new EU enlargement countries, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia have gathered in Brussels to call on EU representatives to live up to the promise that comes with the accession process

Today, LGBTI activists from Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia met with EU representatives in Brussels to explain serious challenges facing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people in their countries, and urge European institutions and Member States to live up to the hope they have given in granting all three countries prospects of becoming members of the EU.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU has made enlargement a priority in the eastern neighbourhood region, recently opening the path for Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia to join the EU. Ukraine and Moldova were granted candidate status by the EU Council in June 2022, and just last month the European Commission advised that Georgia should also receive candidate status at the upcoming December Council.

The prospect of joining the EU is an important motivation for governments to make reforms on advancement of rule of law and protection of fundamental rights. It is especially important in this context that the EU insists that the protection of LGBTI people’s human rights are a core part of those requirements, as governments are often falling behind the requirements. Recommendations from the EU regarding the human rights of LGBTI people are key tools supporting LGBTI organisations to engage with their governments and hold them accountable to the commitments made.

In all three countries hate crime and hate speech against LGBTI people remains a serious issue. While both Moldova and Georgia have legislation protecting against hate crime on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, hate crimes are consistently not registered and prosecuted. Ukraine still needs to adopt such legislation, which is currently being debated in parliament. Despite the international obligations of these countries to provide a legal framework for the recognition of same-sex couples, none of them have adopted such legislation. The inequality this creates is particularly highlighted in Ukraine at this time, where the lack of rights of same-sex partners of soldiers wounded or killed are laid bare. International standards as regards legal gender recognition are that the procedure should be quick, transparent and accessible without abusive requirements. Currently all three countries fail to live up to this for different reasons.

Says Rina Rybalko from Gender Stream, Ukraine: “We believe that Ukraine being an EU candidate country shows bilateral willingness to cooperate and integrate, especially in terms of common values, human rights standards and opportunities. This is an important step towards strengthening democratic values and supporting civil society in Ukraine, where freedom, diversity and human rights are a priority.”

Leo Zbancă from GENDERDOC-M in Moldova says: ”The LGBTI community in Moldova faces risks due to growing anti-LGBTI narratives promoted by pro-Russian forces. We see Moldova’s move to join the EU as vital for protecting LGBTI rights and ensuring the dignity and safety of the community.”

According to Mariam Kvaratskhelia from Tbilisi Pride: “Georgia should be granted candidate status and should move further on the EU integration path without sacrificing LGBTI rights and equality, which is unfortunately what the government is currently doing.”

The accession process comes with hope in candidate countries that the prospect of EU membership will help secure a better life for LGBTI people through the implementation of EU law and standards. However, the road to EU accession can be long, and hope and ambition can turn into disillusionment and disengagement if reforms are not seen through and the efforts of people and governments are not supported and awarded by the EU.

According to Executive Co-director at ERA, Danijel Kalezić from Montenegro, which became a candidate country in 2010: “In the last 15 years in the Western Balkans, we saw how the EU enlargement process can highly contribute to the legal protection and advancement of human rights for LGBTI communities. Unfortunately, we have also seen how a lack of direct and visible political support from the EU to grassroots movements in crucial moments can result in providing a space for anti-democratic movements to stop progress achieved and push the backsliding that is currently ongoing in our region.”

The meetings between activists and EU representatives in Brussels this week were facilitated by ILGA-Europe, the largest umbrella organisation for the LGBTI movement in Europe. According to ILGA-Europe’s Advocacy Director, Katrin Hugendubel, “These meetings are essential because we need to ensure that all EU institutions engaged in the enlargement process understand what is at stake – the huge potential to work for better respect of LGBTI people’s human rights through the process, but also the big risk of backlash in case the EU is not following through the accession promises.

“We see in the Western Balkans after years of active engagement on advancing human rights and fulfilling accession conditions, people are now disillusioned and the influence and leverage of the EU is quickly diminishing. Tensions in the region are high and the influence of other global forces is very real and worrying. In Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, people want to move towards the EU and democratic reforms are undertaken to do so. The EU needs to support these efforts and stand clear on its promise of accession.”

ILGA-Europe has worked with ERA – LGBTI Rights Association for the Western Balkans and Turkey, to produce our annual LGBTI Enlargement Review, assessing gaps in legislation and policy for the protection and advancement of the human rights of LGBTI people in the enlargement countries, and identifying priorities the EU should insist authorities in each country need to tackle in the coming year, as identified by LGBTI activists in the respective countries.

2022 was an historic year for the enlargement process, as the EU expanded its promise of a perspective for EU accession to include Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, following the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine on 24 February 2022. All three countries are now included in the EU’s annual enlargement reporting process. As ILGA-Europe has member organisations in all of the newly added countries, this year’s LGBTI Enlargement Review covers the perspectives of LGBTI civil society from all ten countries: Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine.

This year’s LGBTI Enlargement Review also follows a new format. We wanted to particularly highlight the importance of implementation of already existing policy and legislation, as it has become commonplace for Enlargement countries to adopt a legal framework aligning with EU standards, but not actually implementing it. As a result, each country chapter is divided into the below headings:

• Main legislation/policy to be drafted/adopted to ensure non-discrimination and access to justice for LGBTI people (priorities for the coming year)
• Implementation of already-existing legislation/policy
• Legislation/policy in process
• Feedback on the European Commission’s 2022 Enlargement Report (where applicable)
• Recommendations to the EU

These headings are then complemented by a section linking readers to the respective country chapter of ILGA-Europe’s Annual Review 2023, in order to understand the reality on the ground and more nuanced context, which often varies significantly from legislative frameworks. The chapter on Turkey is structured in a different way, in order to present the current state of play prior to the elections in May, and will be updated to reflect the priorities that emerge after the elections.

In all of the enlargement countries, we can unfortunately identify a clear trend of rule of law being challenged, foreign influence being exerted to challenge advances on human rights, including the rights of LGBTI people, and an increase of hate speech translating into violence on the ground, as well as ongoing challenges to freedom of assembly and association.

In this context, LGBTI topics are being used to polarise society, often to distract from a broader undermining of democracy and the rule of law in these countries and other more important socio-economic and political issues.

It is thus important that the EU renews a clear prospect for EU enlargement, not only for Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, but most importantly in the Western Balkans. The commencement of accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia is an encouraging step in this regard. It is important that the EU places LGBTI rights firmly into all its considerations, and that demands on advancing the protection of the human rights of LGBTI people are put on the same footing as important processes on fighting corruption and advancing the rule of law.

Although achieving EU membership can take several years, even decades, the accession process can already have a positive impact in LGBTI people in a candidate country. We speak to activists in the latest candidates, Ukraine and Moldova, and from Montenegro, which has been a candidate since 2010.

Since its foundation, the EU family has kept its doors open to new members who share the same values. They must be committed to apply, support and promote the EU’s democratic principles and practices in their territories and overseas. Once the request of a European state to join the EU has been agreed by current EU member states, the accession process begins. The benefits of joining are multiple, including access to billions of EU funding, visa free access to EU countries, and Free movement of labour, goods, services and capital.

During the process, the candidate country must satisfy a number of political and economic criteria as well as administrative and institutional capacity.

These criteria include respect for the human rights of LGBTI people. In our latest podcast at The Frontline we spoke to LGBTI activists in Ukraine and Moldova, the latest countries to have been granted candidate status, and in Montenegro, which has been a candidate member since 2010.

Lenny Emson, Ukraine

Lenny is the Director of KyivPride and a board member of Transgender Europe. Earlier this year, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, the country applied for membership of the EU and it was granted candidate status just a few months later, along with Moldova. Lenny says the accession process “brings a bit of hope” to LGBTI people in a country that is still battling against Putin’s invasion.

“In practice this could mean the adoption of marriage equality and anti-hate legislation. Right now, if a person in a same-sex relationship gets hurt in the battlefield, their partner will not have the right to make medical decisions. This is why marriage equality in Ukraine is one of the priorities for LGBTI activists at the moment and the EU candidate status is pushing it up in the political agenda.~

Before the war started, anti-hate legislation to protect LGBTI people from biased-motivated crime was already in the makings. According to Lenny, its adoption would would be gaining a “right we’ve been fighting for in the five past years”.

Now more than ever, LGBTI activists advocate for the protection of sexual orientation and gender identity grounds as “anti-LGBTI groups that existed before the war now feel pretty much okay,” as Lenny explains. “Since the war started over 100 cases of LGBTI-phobic crimes have been reported to civil society organisations.”

Anastasia Danilova, Moldova

Anastasia is the director of GENDERDOC-M and a board member of ILGA-Europe. Just a few days after Ukraine’s request in early March 2022, Moldova applied for EU membership. The country also became candidate member in June.

“Definitely it’s a great opportunity for LGBTI people in the country,”. Anastasia says. There have been already some positive changes linked to the EU accession, like the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, which entered into force in the country in May, and the adoption of anti-hate crime legislation which includes sexual orientation and gender identity as protected grounds.

“Implementation will be a huge issue, but it’s already a big step. Until now, because of lack of legislation, crimes against LGBTI people were not registered in the official statistics.”

For Moldovans, the EU accession talks are also a security matter as pro-Russian parties try to destabilise the progressive government. “EU enlargement is the only chance for the future, for LGBTI people to enjoy equality,” Anastasia explains.

Danijel Kalezić, Montenegro

Danijel worked for years as the Executive Director of Queer Montenegro , but has now become the Co-director of ERA, the LGBTI Equal  Rights Association. 12 years after Montenegro was granted EU candidate status, Danijel’s insights on the process and its impact are different to those from Lenny and Anastasia.

He sees a gap between “the paper” and the practice. “In many countries the EU enlargement is been used to improve the human rights framework. Montenegro is a good example of this. This year the country made it to the top-10 of the Rainbow Map and Index and has made major legislative changes in recent years to protect the rights of LGBTI people, including same-sex unions. However, if we look to what’s happening in real life, [the change] is not followed.”

This is because there are no communication campaigns following the legislative changes. “To enjoy all the rights that we have now on paper, we need to be able to change hearts and minds. And that change is not going as fast as the change of the legal framework,” Danijel says.

The EU candidate status can be “an amazing boost for the human rights of LGBTI people, to start conversations, but I would like to see more pressure from the EU on the government and stakeholders to talk about the importance of this process.”

Danijel points out to the need of speaking of human rights not only important to become a member of the EU, but above all, for all citizens of the country.  

Danijel, Anastasia and Lenny are all guests on our latest two-part podcast episode exploring the effect of the EU accession process on candidate countries, alongside former member of European Parliament, Marije Cornelissen, who has worked extensively on the accession process, and ILGA-Europe’s advocacy director, Katrin Hugendubel, to talk about our long history of working alongside candidate countries to advocate for LGBTI rights and equality.

In this two-part episode of The Frontline podcast, presented by Belinda Dear, we’re looking at the new wave of accession to the European Union and what it will mean for LGBTI people.

With the recent news that Ukraine and Moldova are now candidates to the EU, the topic of EU accession is on the radar again, while Western Balkan countries such as Serbia, North Macedonia and Montenegro have been going through the process for some years now, and Turkey not acceded since its application in 1987.

With the current state of LGBTI rights in Central Europe, highlighted most recently by the Serbian government’s anti-democratic instrumentalising of LGBTI people in an effort to try to stop EuroPride in Belgrade, how does this kind of backsliding play into the accession process? And what about countries like Ukraine, where LGBTI rights have barely been on the governmental agenda? What are the opportunities to be gained by candidacy for joining the EU?

To discuss these questions and more, we’re joined by former member of European Parliament, Marije Cornelissen, who has worked extensively on the accession process, Lenny Emson from Kyiv Pride in Ukraine, Anastasia Danilova from GENDERDOC-M in Moldova, and Danijel Kalezić, who worked for years as the Executive Director of Queer Montenegro, but has now become the Co-director of ERA, the LGBTI Equal Rights Association for the Western Balkans and Turkey . We’re also joined by our Advocacy Director, Katrin Hugendubel to talk about ILGA-Europe’s deep and long-term experience of working on accession countries, which has been happening for 25 years now.

Listen below or click here to listen and subscribe to The Frontline on your favourite podcast platform.

ILGA-Europe has in partnership with national organisations provided the European Commission with detailed documentation on human rights violations against LGBTI people in all candidate and potential candidate countries throughout the year which is included in the submissions to the Progress Reports.

2023

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

Violence against LGBTI people

(Nos. 21029/13, 40620/14, 23914/15, 26806/15, 32617/16 and 49542/16), 17 September 2018

Find here the communicated case.

• The applications concern violence caused by private individuals and/or the danger of repeated such violence, as well as the alleged insufficiency of investigations and/or impunity of the perpetrators by the Moldavian authorities.
• ILGA-Europe together with the Equal Rights Trust submitted that:
  • It is critical that the potential application of Article 14 be given specific consideration wherever there is a prima facie case that violence is motivated by bias against LGBT+ persons. Bias-motivated violence impacts disproportionately and differently on members of minority groups, including LGBT+ persons. It thus demands a response which recognises its discriminatory causes and consequences.
  • Positive obligations under Articles 14 and 3 encompass duties of prevention, protection, investigation and prosecution. Violations of Article 14 taken with Article 3 may be found where particular judicial or prosecutorial practices have a disproportionate impact on individuals of a vulnerable group and fail to take into account the discriminatory nature of the violence.

Ban on demonstration / Freedom of assembly of LGBT associations.

(Application no. 9106/06), June 2010 

Find Court’s judgement here. (Violation of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 11 + award of damages)

• The applicant association – whose aim is to provide information and to assist the LGBT community in Moldova – complained that the ban imposed on it on holding a demonstration constituted a violation of its right to peaceful assembly. The Government alleged that the refusal was based on “public order” and “public morality.
• ILGA-Europe together with the International Commission of Jurists submitted the following:
  • Public morality and public disorder are misused to justify interferences with the rights of LGBT individuals. The requirements of democratic societies are such that public morality and related prevention of disorder grounds must be narrowly construed and applied.
  • The Court has emphasized the importance of freedom of association for minorities, which include people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.
• The European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgement on 12 June 2012.
• The Court referred to the interveners’ submission that the protection of morals is not and can never be an objective and reasonable justification under Article 14 of the Convention. It reiterated that sexual orientation is a concept covered by Article 14. It considered that the reason for the ban imposed on the event proposed by the applicant was the authorities’ disapproval of demonstrations which they considered to promote homosexuality. When limiting the right of assembly, national authorities should offer clear reasons for so doing. However each authority which dealt with the applicant association’s request to hold a demonstration rejected it for a different reason. In view of the above, the Court held that there had been a violation of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 11 of the Convention.

This research project is the first of its size and scope has to be carried out among LGBT communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Macedonia, Moldova and Romania. As such, the initiative is of groundbreaking importance and the data collected will serve to inform ongoing advocacy and policy work.

The report presents the findings on health and access to the health care system by the LGBT communities in five Central and Eastern European countries, as well as draws conclusions and makes recommendations to the relevant stakeholders, including international organisations. It also introduces a methodology and lessons learnt, which could be used for further research.

ILGA-Europe used the results of the research to lobby the EU Commission for the repeal of all laws discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation as a condition of accession to the Union. As of August 2005, only one out of the 13 newly acceded countries – Bulgaria – continues to have such laws.