The central topic of the symposium
was the notion of ‘multiple discrimination'. All presentations aimed at a
better understanding of this phenomena, whether being its roots, its characteristics
or even its preventive measures, on the European level. As Taran put it, there
is an increasing demand for migration and mobility in Europe. At the same time,
Anthias cleverly stated, the existing EU legislation is primarily concerned
with ‘equality of treatment', while somewhat undermining ‘equality of outcome'
when tackling discrimination and multiple discrimination. This discrepancy coupled
with the public opinion's generally poor understanding of the complexities of
discrimination results in problems of equality that were addressed at this
symposium.
As Privot explained, multiple
discrimination occurs when a person is discriminated against for multiple
reasons. In addition, all guest speakers shared the perception that multiple
discrimination counts for more than the mere sum of all grounds of
discrimination. Unfortunately, that view is not reflected in the current EU legislation.
According to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, there are distinctly
defined types of discrimination[1]
which, moreover, are treated as mutually exclusive and cannot be employed in combination
with one another. On the other hand, even when the EU legislation is attempting
to tackle the issue by adopting a more multidimensional approach, Anthias was
quick to observe that these new EU directives are ineffective. According to the
professor of Roehampton University, because the directives are not
intersectional, all grounds of discrimination are distinct, ultimately failing
to notice the interweaving between the different grounds, without mentioning
the problem of defining certain grounds (i.e. ethnicity).
Lastly, it is obvious from all the
guest speakers' presentations that the EU needs to massively improve its
legislation if it is to deal with the growing problem of multiple
discrimination. Within an organisation such as the EU, with its diverse Member
states and different societies, who do not necessarily share the same
perceptions of social reality phenomena, as shown through Wrench's comparison
of newer and older EU Member states' citizens' awareness of discrimination[2],
it is difficult to see how a consensual opinion may emerge on multiple
discrimination and the ways to deal with it. In addition, Taran pointed out how
current testing methods fail to single out the input of the different
discrimination grounds in a case of multiple discrimination, so that we never
truly know the impact of the interweaving process. Until these issues are
resolved, we can only hope that the civil society organisations' continue to
provide valuable insight in a field which has yet to be fully understood.
by Darko Brizic
[1]
Art. 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU states that only sex,
race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or
belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority,
property, birth, disability, age and sexual orientation are considered as
possible grounds of discrimination.
[2]
The results survey on employment discrimination, conducted by the EU Agency for
the Fundamental Rights suggested that, as a general trend, the older EU Member
states (i.e. Western Europe) had a better overall understanding and were more
conscious about employment discrimination than in the newer Member states (i.e.
Eastern Europe).
