Ireland has been told to change the way in which it incorporates European Union equality legislation because Irish law contains exemptions for religious-run institutions such as schools and hospitals. The European Commissioner for employment, social affairs and equal opportunities, Vladimír Špidla, has begun legal action against 12 member states, including Ireland, France and Germany, for their ‘failure’ to fully or properly implement an EU employment directive.
The current laws allow religious run institutions to protect their ethos by not hiring employees who could harm that ethos.
Among the objections cited by the Commission is that the exception from the ban on discrimination on grounds of religion is “too broad”.
The Irish legislation implementing EU employment equality legislation, the Equality Acts 2000-2004, permits Church run schools to ensure that the teachers it employs comply with their ethos.
The Commission also says that the Irish implementing legislation does not prohibit discrimination based on beliefs.
Both of these objections potentially threaten denominational organisations, such as charities, schools or hospitals, which wish to ensure that their employees comply with their ethos.
If the Government does not change its legislation in this area, the next step for the Commissioner is to take its case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
If the ECJ agrees with the Commission, it can impose a fine on Ireland, which could potentially continue until the law is changed in accordance with the Commissioner's demands.
Meanwhile, Germany has been sent a letter of formal notice which includes an instruction to give same-sex couples the same rights as married couple. Same-sex couples can enter civil partnerships in Germany.
As yet, Ireland has not been sent a letter on the issue of same sex partnerships, because we have not introduced a Bill to allow for civil partnerships.
Once member-states have allowed some form of same-sex civil union, the EU generally writes to instruct them to extend all the rights of married couples to those unions.
Leaders of Germany's Christian Democratic Party (CDU) have condemned the Commission's move. Peter Ramsauer, CSU (Bavarian Christian-Social) group whip in the Bundestag, is quoted in the Tagesspiegel newspaper as saying that Špidla "obviously hasn't got a clue about German ideas with respect to subsidiarity," the EU principle that government power ought to reside at the lowest feasible level.
Ramsauer added: "While we are talking about susidiarity control, Špidla does the blatant opposite."
Ramsauer announced his party in the Bundestag plans to tie ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon to a resolution on subsidiarity control.
Markus Söder, Bavarian minister for European affairs and from the same party as Ramsauer, said that tightening German anti-discrimination law was "not feasible in Bavaria".
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