Brussels, 6 April 2020

Dear President Lehne,

With the upcoming selection of the European Court of Auditors’ audit plans for the year 2021 in mind, we would like to draw your attention to the following request.

The treaties stipulate that the should protect the rights of all citizens regardless of their sexual orientation. Surveys show that a majority of Europeans believe that LGBTI people should have the same rights as everybody else. In practice, however, the Member States fall short on this principle more and more often. Recent examples of discriminatory measures against LGBTI persons include the so-called ‘LGBTI-free zones’, which since the beginning of 2019 have been adopted by dozens of municipalities, counties and regions in the southeast of Poland. We are also witnessing an increase in hate speech from political and religious leaders in countries including, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, , Portugal, Slovakia and Spain.1

As Members of the , we are very concerned by this trend. These examples clearly show that the LGBTI community still faces considerable obstacles, before being completely accepted in all countries of the European Union. In December 2019, the European Parliament adopted a resolution which strongly condemned these practices and called upon the European Commission to do so as well.

In its distribution of funds, the EU should never facilitate nor contribute to any activities linked to anti-LGBTI ideology. As is also stated in the common provisions of the ESI-funds recital 13 explicitly: “In the context of its effort to increase economic, territorial and social cohesion, the Union should, at ​ all stages of implementation of the ESI-Funds, aim at eliminating inequalities and at promoting equality between men and women and integrating the gender perspective, as well as at combating discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation as set out in Article 2 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU), Article 10 TFEU and Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.” ​

Therefore, we consider it of great importance to audit the disbursement of ESI-Funds by the Commission and the Member States. More specifically, we suggest you include in your 2021 work programme a specific (performance) audit addressing the following questions: do Member States use European funds for measures linked to discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity? Do the Commission and the Member States consider the LGBTI aspect during the process of preparation and implementation of the funds? And what possible steps has the Union as its disposal to sanction countries that have used EU-funds for the aforementioned purposes?

We thank you for your consideration and look forward to hearing back from you.

1 ​https://www.ilga-europe.org/sites/default/files/Attachments/Annual%20Review%202020.pdf Yours sincerely, ​

Vera Tax (S&D) (S&D) (S&D) (S&D) (S&D) (S&D) Robert Biedroń (S&D) ​ Maria Walsh (EPP) (S&D) Tomas Tobé (EPP) (S&D) Rasmus Andresen (Greens/EFA) Nathalie Loiseau (Renew) (S&D) Petra de Sutter (Greens/EFA) Chrysoula Zacharopoulou (Renew) Rosa D’Amato (Non-attached) Sirpa Pietikäinen (EPP) Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield (Greens/EFA) Fabio Massimo Castaldo (Non-attached) (S&D) (Greens/EFA) Abir Al-Sahlani (Renew) Fredrick Federley (Renew) Eleonora Evi (Non-attached) Kira Marie Peter-Hansen (Greens/EFA) (S&D) Silvia Modig (GUE/NGL) Frances Fitzgerald (EPP) Cindy Franssen (EPP) Alice Kuhnke (Greens/EFA) Irène Tolleret (Renew) ​ Pierre Karleskind (Renew)