Can EU talks boost LGBTQ+ rights in Ukraine, Moldova and Bosnia?
LGBTQIA+ activists in Ukraine, Bosnia and Moldova – the countries next in line to start talks on joining the EU – say the membership process could boost their fight for equality, but only if the bloc takes governments to task over rights progress.
Announcing the recommendation last week for talks to start with the three countries, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that could only happen once outstanding conditions related to the rule of law and democracy were met.
She said Georgia would be added to the list of candidate countries, which also includes Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey, a step welcomed by LGBTQIA+ groups. “Each step towards the EU gives us hope that sooner or later we will have equal rights and these rights will be protected,” Leo Zbancă, an LGBTQIA+ activist at the GENDERDOC-M Information Centre rights group in Moldova, told Openly.
The EU can oblige member states to adopt legislation that bans discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation, and put pressure on them over anti-LGBTQIA+ measures by withdrawing funding.
