Leo van Doesburg

As written in my previous post,  there are five main reasons to vote AGAINST the Noichl Initiative Report, EU Strategy for Equality between Women and Men post 2015 that you need to keep in mind while voting next Tuesday, 9th June.  Most important arguments are as follows   48% of the Noichl Report’s paragraphs are in clear contradiction to the EU Principle of Subsidiarity. 35% of paragraphs are «off topic» with regard to the subject of the report: Strategy on Equality between men and women post 2015. 17% of paragraphs entail serious risks of restrictions on freedom of speech of the media, freedom of education and freedom in the context of contractual agreements. Seven Considerations (from S to X) introduce non-scientific based elements , as well as unfounded allegations. (Source Europe for Family): (You can find the Noichl report here)

This week the European Parliament is going to vote on the  EU strategy for equality between women and men post 2015 , also known as the Noichl Report, so named after its rapporteur, Maria Noichl (S&D, Germany). This report, as it has been approved by the FEMM Committee, goes clearly beyond the Treaties and breaches the principle of Subsidiarity . By approving this text, the European Parliament would be asking the European Commission to act in fields where it has no legal authority, such as health policy and family law. We also believe that the use of the word "gender" is not precise enough and is not entirely appropriate when referring to non-discrimination between women and men, which is the exact wording used by the EU Treaties. This does not seem to be the case for the Draft Report, which tends to extend the notions of "gender" beyond the EU legal basis. In short (according to the Europe for Family organization): this controversial (but, fortun...

Yesterday, the 5 th June 2014, a large majority of the Slovakian Parliament voted to define marriage as "a unique bond between a man and a woman". With this decision, the Slovak Republic followed Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Hungary and Croatia. It is becoming clear that more and more Central and Eastern European countries choose to protect the definition of marriage and do not succumb to influenced exerted by large LGBT pressure groups. Interestingly enough, however, mainstream international media like Euronews do not mention these developments at all, which only proves how biased the press is. The Slovak decision reiterates, once again, that the definition of marriage should never be an EU competence, but that the member states should always decide this for themselves. It is also interesting that this issue seems to increasingly divide West Europe from Central and Eastern Europe. I am curious to see whether Western countries who advocate for same-sex marriag...

Despite the adoption of a  resolution on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights  on 10 December 2013 by the European Parliament (EP), there is currently a new attempt to push through what has become known as the “Estrela Agenda”: abortion on demand, restriction of freedom of conscience, compulsory sex education at primary and secondary school etc. Source: Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe

First of all I would like to say that I am honored and it is a pleasure to be at this important conference about “The positive-active role of Vojvodina-Serbian minorities in the Serbian EU integration process”.  It is great that the conference is taking place in the beautiful city of the “little top”, in Vrsac. The chosen theme is a very important and relevant one. Therefore let's split the title “The positive-active role of Vojvodina Serbian minorities in the Serbian EU integration process” in three parts, followed by a conclusion with some recommendations.

(Source: Human Dignity Watch), June 10, 2011 A European Parliament debate on new Fundamental Hungarian Law (constitution) of 18 April 2011 took place on June 8 2011. The new Fundemental Law was adopted by an overwhelming majority of 262 votes to 44 votes (plus one abstention).It shall come into force on 1January 2012.For several weeks, the Hungarian constitution was violently criticised and it seems necessary to analyse the debate to distinguish between objective criticism, political attacks against this law, protecting values in the European tradition. The debate around Hungarian Fundamental Basic Law, the latter recalling the importance of human dignity,protection of life and family, based on marriage between a man and a woman shows that - apart from a few legally debatalbe points- part of the political class in Brussels does not want to hear about these values and fight hard against them .

I was surprised to learn about the strong pressure on the Macedonian government following the adoption of the new anti-discrimination law that does not mention sexual orientation. It is interesting that these emotional discussions mainly base themselves on vague terms like “European values” and “European standards”. Even the European Commission reminded Macedonia that its anti-discrimination legislation should be in line with the “Charter of Fundamental Rights”, part of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty. What was interesting was that the Charter was only used for Article 21 (where “Sexual orientation” is protected). The consequences for other rights like “the freedom of thought, conscience and religion (Art. 10 of the Charter) or for the “Freedom of Expression and information” (Art. 11 of the Charter) were mainly forgotten in these discussions. Furthermore I found it strange that the pressure did not start from Macedonian society, but mainly from abroad: from ambassadors, certain European Parliam...