The European Commission announced this Wednesday that it will present a recommendation in 2027 in which will “ask” European governments to ban conversion therapies against LGTBIQ+ people, in response to a citizen legislative initiative which achieved more than a million signatures.
Conversion therapies “have no place in our Union”, the president of the Commission said in a statement, Ursula von der Leyen. “They are based on the false idea that LGBTIQ+ people are sick,” said the community Executive. However, Brussels will limit itself in its proposal, which will only be presented in 2027, to call on governments to ban them.
One million signatures
In 2024, representatives of the European Association Against Conversion Therapies (ACT) launched a citizen legislative initiative. This system allows citizens ask the European Commission to propose concrete legislationas long as the initiative has a minimum of one million signatures from at least seven EU countries in one year.
The organizers asked the Commission to included this type of therapies in the list of European crimes, as was proposed with gender violence, or that included this phenomenon in the equality directive that tries to prevent discrimination. He also asked to recognize as a crime for the purposes of the directive that specifically protects the rights of victims.
Furthermore, aware that a good part of the decisions regarding justice remain in the hands of national governments or require unanimitythe organizers called for a non-legally binding initiative but that called for the illegalization of the practice throughout the continent. The initiative was supported by more than one million one hundred thirty thousand citizens in the twenty-seven countries of the bloc.
The problem of unanimity
The European Commission considers that the recommendation in which it will ask governments to ban conversion therapies is the most effective way to address the problem. In the recommendation, Brussels will call on countries to to fight against these types of practices and will “invite” them to account for the measures they are taking to do so.
Brussels has not excluded the possibility of include the practice of conversion therapies as a crime European, but to do so it must meet specific criteria. In particular, it must be a particularly serious crime “with a cross-border dimension resulting from the nature or impact of such crimes or a special need to combat them in a common way”.
The problem is that modifying this list requires the unanimity of the Twenty-seven and not all European governments are equally willing to protect the rights of LGTBIQ+ people. The same goes for the possibility of extend protection under the equality directiveto extend protection beyond what is purely linked to employment.
Violence and discrimination
Currently, only eight countries in the bloc, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Greece, France, Cyprus, Malta and Portugal, They have legislation that prohibits talking therapies. Sentences range from fines to prison sentences and in many of these countries It is considered an aggravating circumstance when the victim is a minor. In these countries, the Commission considers that the victims’ rights directive already protects them.
According to a survey by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, 24% of LGBTIQ+ people in the EU have been victims of conversion therapy. This percentage reaches 47% when it comes to trans women, and 48% in the case of trans men.
This type of “therapies” uses physical and sexual violence, abuse and humiliation, electroshock or medication with the aim of changing or repress sexual orientation or gender identity or expression of LGTBIQ+ people. They have been classified by the UN as a form of torture and can have serious physical and psychological consequences.
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