LGBT Rights in Europe and Serbia

By Claude Moraes MEP

In November, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) released its 2010 report on homophobia and discrimination in Europe. I was at the European Parliament launch of this report with Morten Kjaerum, Director of FRA.

Whilst the report does note the positive and expanding aspects of LGBT rights, it still makes for a sobering read. Reporting on EU Member States, it sadly depicts a situation in which LGBT rights are not enjoyed evenly across Europe.

The report was commissioned by the European Parliament in 2009 and does strike some positive notes. But we cannot be complacent. Homophobia also exists right on the EU’s doorstep.

I am thinking here of how this year, for the first time in 10 years, a Gay Pride march was organized in Serbia.

Pride is normally a great event, and fun for everyone who attends. But this Pride event, held in Belgrade, was different. Rather than enjoying themselves, about 140 people were hurt and some 200 arrested. I was not only sad to see the march end in fighting between homophobes and police, but also disturbed by the wider connotations of such organised far-right homophobia.

The Gay Pride march was supposed to have been a major test for Serbia’s government, hoping as it is to join the European Union. Serbia had in fact pledged to protect all those on the march, some 1,000 participants, a promise the Serbian police did their best to keep. Serbia also sent several top government officials to the march, among them Svetozar ÄŒiplić, Serbian Minister of Human and Minority Rights

The march still erupted in violence.

Serbian Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac reacted to this violence, saying “Serbia will secure human rights for all its citizens regardless of their diversity”. Labour MEPs naturally welcome this pledge. The decision of Serbian authorities to stand by LGBT rights, no matter what, was the only choice to make.

But the violence on the march depicts a wider problem in Europe, a problem linked to FRA’s report and one I have written about before on LabourList. This problem is the rejuvenation of far right nationalism in Europe.

Of particular concern here is how, with this brutally disrupted march, we have a clear example of unrest and violence directly linked to the far right’s resurgence in Europe.

Not only a sad example, it is also a clear threat to Serbia’s path to EU membership and should act as a warning sign for all in the apparently calmer European West.

In part, I am talking about a rejection of current Serbian politics through attacks on pro-Western party offices (both the Democratic Party and the Socialist Party offices were attacked by hooligans during the march). This meant that in addition to the unacceptable hatred towards gay people, something that is only to be expected from these groups, the violence on the march also marked a rejection of pro-Western, pro-EU bridge-building undertaken in recent years by Serbian authorities.

This comes as a rejection of European democratic values and an attack on those thought to represent them – innocent members of the LGBT community simply trying to enjoy a day of fun.

There is hope. Facing the threat of similar violence last year, a Gay Pride march in Serbia was cancelled. This time, Serbian authorities to confront the threat of violence by extremist groups like Obraz, a far-right group.

This was a positive sign.

But the very need to protect the LGBT minority in Serbia has also signalled very clearly how Serbian authorities have wider problems than their EU ambitions.

In fact, it’s made clear how all European progressives, and indeed all European democrats, are in the same boat, showing us how the issue of LGBT rights is fundamentally linked to democracy itself. This is especially true given work still to be done in the European Union, where, as the FRA report points out, only 13 countries prohibit incitement to hatred specifically towards their LGBT populations. I fear that this issue is something that can still be exploited by the far right in Europe.

For now, with the help of the EU the protection of minorities’ rights will continue to be paramount on Serbia’s political agenda in 2011 and beyond.

In the meantime, we should take this shocking and unacceptable violence as a warning sign to us all. The far right would have us believe it targets minorities and promotes majorities. This is idea is a dangerous poison, but one far more widespread and organised than we necessarily think.

It is time for all EU Member States to legislate directly against any and all hatred directed at LGBT communities in Europe.