europe activity 8 Oct. 2000 - 23 Oct. 2001 ilga report www.ilga-europe.org europe activity ilga report THANKS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank everybody who HIVOS (the Netherlands), Homosexuelle supported the work of the Board over the Selbsthilfe e. V. (Germany), and the City of last twelve months. Without the commit- Rotterdam for generously funding specific ment and donations of many people and projects and activities of ILGA-Europe; the financial and other support of many (member) organisations this work would ◗ Homosexuelle Initiative (HOSI) Wien not have been possible. We cannot mention (Austria), UNISON, the public sector them all here but special thanks have to go union in the United Kingdom, and Fede- to the following: ratie Werkgroepen Homoseksualiteit (Bel- gium) for substantial financial contribu- ◗ Steffen Jensen who, as outgoing treasurer, tions to our work; The European Region of the continued to take care of ILGA-Europe’s International Lesbian and Gay finances and accounts until the end of the ◗ the European Commission for granting us Association calendar year 2000. Together with other core funding and its anti-discrimination activists of the Danish national gay and unit for the good co-operation; Avenue de Tervueren/ lesbian association LBL he also continued Tervurenlaan 94/1 to publish the Euro-Letter on behalf of ◗ MEPs Michael Cashman, Joke Swiebel, B-1040 Brussels ILGA-Europe, and on top of that Patsy Sörensen, Lousewies van der Laan, phone +32 2 732 54 88 remained in charge of our web-site; and Baroness Sarah Ludford for their fax +32 2 732 51 64 commitment to support LGBT issues in [email protected] ◗ Mark Bell, Robert Wintemute, Alberto the European Parliament; www.ilga-europe.org Volpato, Tom Hoemig, Enrique Góngora, Cathal Kelly, Gerhard Grühn, and Monika ◗ and last but not least to Claudia Roth, for- Bank account # 001- Wienbeck who have supported us with mer MEP and now chair-person of the 3523388-36 expertise, volunteer and fundraising work; German Green Party, who has been a Fortis Bank, Vooruitgangstraat long-term friend of ILGA and came to the 333/9, ◗ the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (Germany), the opening party of our new office to coin its B-1030 Brussels Open Society Institute (OSI) in Budapest, new name: “LGBT embassy in Brussels”. SWIFT: GEBABEEB ILGA-Europe Activity Report 2000-2001 Editor: Kurt Krickler TABLE OF CONTENTS Contributors: Nico J. Beger, Tatjana Greif, Pierre Noël, Thanks and acknowledgements 2 C. Organization for Security and Mette Vadstrup, Nigel Warner. Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) 13 Introduction 3 Design & Layout: Christian D. Programme of activities in A. European Union 4 Högl (www.creativbox.at) support of LGBT human rights 1. Article 13 anti-discrimination organisations in Central, Eastern Printer: Sofadi, Brussels initiatives 4 and Southern Europe 14 © ILGA-Europe. Reproduction 2. EU Charter of Fundamental Rights 5 permitted, provided that E. Actions to counter human rights 3. Asylum and immigration 6 appropriate reference is made abuses against LGBT and HIV+ to the source. 4. EU enlargement 7 people in Europe 14 This Annual 5. Human rights in member states 8 F. HIV/AIDS prevention 15 Report is pub- G. Transgender issues 15 lished with the 6. The EU and third country human rights 9 support of the H. Development of ILGA-Europe 16 European Commission – The 7. Other EU programmes 10 European Union against dis- I. Other activities 16 8. Civil and social dialogues 11 crimination. The information J. Board membership, meetings contained in this publication 9. Mainstreaming of LGBT issues 11 and board officers 17 does not necessarily reflect the position or opinion of the Other EU activities 11 K. Financial Report 2000 18 European Commission. It is not liable for any use that may be B. Council of Europe 12 L. Calendar of meetings & 2 made of this information. travels 2000-2001 19 activity europe report ilga fied as cornerstones for the future develop- ment of ILGA-Europe: INTRODUCTION 1. A continuation of our focus on non-geo- graphical LGBT issues, such as increasingly taking into consideration the need for proj- Since its foundation in December 1996, and of course the monthly Euro-Letter, ects in the field of sexual orientation/gen- ILGA-Europe has produced annual activity which has continued to be published, on der identity and racism, ageism or disability reports of its executive board for the peri- behalf of ILGA-Europe, by the international discrimination in LGBT communities as ods between two consecutive annual con- section of the Danish national gay and les- well as taking into consideration specific ferences – which since are held in October bian association LBL (Landsforeningen for cultural needs of certain LGBT groups; each year. The period between two annual bøsser og lesbiske). conferences is also the period for which the 2. A continuous focus on skill building and annual conference adopts the Work Pro- On the following pages you will thus find a development work in non-EU countries. gramme of ILGA-Europe. detailed report on the manifold activities of This area of work needs specific fundrais- ILGA-Europe. In summary we can say ing activities beyond our core funding that With this report, however, we alter its for- without exaggeration that the activity peri- is restricted to EU work. ILGA-Europe will mat in two ways. There is the obvious out- od 2000-2001 was the most successful so remain strongly committed to not letting ward appearance: thanks to EU funding we far in the history of ILGA-Europe. EU funding regulations restrict the geo- are able to have a proper layout and design graphical area of work for ILGA-Europe. and to print the report instead of just pho- One of the most significant factors that has The past year has already included a clear tocopying typed pages. Additionally, we made this possible is the core funding focus on this area; have altered the way of reporting. In order ILGA-Europe has been receiving from the to make it easier to relate the reported European Commission as from 1 December 3. Focusing more on the issues of family activities to the Work Programme 2000- 2000. We were able to employ two people, and youth which still present the biggest 2001, we have included the various items Mette Vadstrup as full-time information stumbling block to LGBT equality in and paragraphs from the Work Program- officer, and Olivier Collet, as half-time Europe. Here ILGA-Europe aims to become me, as adopted last year in Bucharest, in the administration officer, from February 2001 an information and resource place for this corresponding sections of this report. and to rent office space in Brussels as of 15 crucial debate; February 2001. This certainly has made a big difference. 4. Defining the needs and issues of trans- gender communities in Europe and conse- We can also report that ILGA-Europe is – quently increasing ILGA-Europe’s own finally – registered as an international non- skills in arguing against gender identity dis- profit non-governmental organisation crimination and making the T in LGBT a under Belgian law as of 10 August 2001. visible and strong tenet of our work. The last thing to do in this context is to have the registration and necessary docu- The immediate task to establish our work mentation published in the official journal in the direction of those four cornerstones of Belgium, the Moniteur belge, which is will involve a closer study of realisation under way. options. Primarily this means an assess- ment of tasks and human resources in and around the board as well as in the office Employees Mette Vadstrup and Olivier Collet in with the aim to develop a long-term per- the new office Perspectives spective of our human resource and fund- ing needs. The board will seek to stabilise Background information on the various The Board has only recently found the time funding from other sources outside the EU activities and the developments leading up to consider the larger future direction of Commission to assure our broad focus of to the current situations can be found in ILGA-Europe. With the office now up and work can continuously be developed. the previous annual board reports, which in operation we are able to consider what are all available at our web-site, and in the future possibilities could open up to us and THE EXECUTIVE BOARD OF two issues of our new ILGA-Europe how the work can be best managed. So far ILGA-EUROPE Newsletter, that have been published so far, four broad areas of work have been identi- Brussels, October 2001 3 europe activity ilga report A. EUROPEAN UNION 1. Article 13 anti-discrimination initiatives On 17 October 2000 the Employment and This is indeed a historic development. It Likewise it was one of ILGA-Europe’s main Social Affairs Ministers Council in Luxem- means nothing less than that 15 member tasks in 2001 to closely follow the develop- bourg agreed the first two measures based states and 13 accession countries will have ments concerning the Community action on Article 13 EC (Treaty of Amsterdam) to introduce, by December 2003, anti-dis- programme and to reach out to its con- that also deal with sexual orientation: crimination legislation at national level stituency with up-dated information, in prohibiting, inter alia, discrimination on particular with regard to the launch of the ◗ Council Directive 2000/78/EC establish- the grounds of sexual orientation in programme and first calls for proposals, ing a general framework for equal treat- employment and occupation. ILGA-Europe and to explain the rather complicated for- ment in employment and occupation, publicised this landmark achievement mat of the programme and these first calls.