Sexual Orientation Discrimination in the European Union: National Laws and the Employment Equality Directive

The Employment Equality Directive requires EU Member States to prohibit sexual orientation discrimination in the field of employment. This book is the first to assess to what degree the Directive's requirements have been met by the twenty-five Member States and by Bulgaria and Romania. The authors discuss the relevant aspects of EU law and provide a detailed analysis of the quality and conformity of national anti-discrimination legislation aimed at implementing the Employment Equality Directive. In this analysis special attention is paid to the implications of what distinguishes sexual orientation from other forbidden grounds of discrimination. Therefore the book focuses on the various private and public aspects of sexual orientation, such as preference, behaviour, partnership and 'coming out'. It also discusses direct and indirect discrimination, harassment, permissible and impermissible exceptions, sanctions, and the role of interest groups and specialised enforcement bodies.

Kees Waaldijk is a senior lecturer at the E.M. Meijers Institute of Legal Studies of the University of Leiden Matteo Bonini-Baraldi is a researcher, working at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bologna