The European Commission unveiled a new LGBTIQ+ strategy for 2026-2030 on Wednesday (8 October) amid a climate that many describe as increasingly hostile, with rising anti-LGBTIQ+ rhetoric and restrictive legislation in several EU member states. But critics say it is far from what is needed.
EU commissioner for equality, Hadja Lahbib, told the press that she wanted to dedicate the strategy to Mustafa, a boy the commissioner met when she herself was a 12-year old. He was a friend of hers who was beaten up because he was homosexual.
“The Union has the obligation to protect those people that are different”, Lahbib said.
The commission plans to double the budget for civil society groups working on equality, up to €3.6bn in the next EU long-term budget for the CERV programme, which supports NGOs.
The strategy focuses on the digital world because “online is a poison that does not stay online. It fuels violence in the real world,” said Lahbib, arguing that violence against the LGBTIQ+ community is rising.
Every fourth queer person and every second trans person have had experience with harmful conversion practices, Lahbib said.
Currently, only eight member states have banned conversion therapy. But no concrete measures to fight it at a European level are on the table yet.
Still, the commissioner stressed that the collection of reliable data was ongoing to find ways to ban it in the future.
Meanwhile, MEPs from the parliament LGBTIQ+ intergroup welcomed the new strategy and its focus on online harassment. But they also criticised it as short-sighted.
“This strategy does too little to improve the lived experience of our most vulnerable groups, in particular the trans- and intersex community,” Green Dutch MEP Kim van Sparrentak, co-chair of the intergroup, said in a statement.
Further criticism came from the LGBTIQ+ rights organisation Forbidden Colours, stating that the commission's proposal was too weak and that it “does not meet today’s reality” as it doesn't put forward any concrete legislative proposals and doesn‘t sufficiently recognise the threats that come from within the EU.
The Brussels-based NGO, as well as the LGBTIQ+ intergroup in the parliament, pointed out that the new strategy won‘t change the situation for many in, for example, Hungary, where Pride Parades are forbidden and citizens are stripped of their freedom of assembly.
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Hannah Kriwak is a junior reporter from Austria at EUobserver, covering European politics.
Hannah Kriwak is a junior reporter from Austria at EUobserver, covering European politics.