EU declines to ban LGBTQ conversion therapy, opting instead to push member states to act on the harmful practices.
BRUSSELS: The European Union will not ban “conversion therapy” targeting LGBTQ people, but will push member states to take action against such practices, it said Wednesday.
So-called conversion “therapies” involve methods that seek to change the sexual orientation or gender identity or expression of members of gay, lesbians, queer and trans people.
The EU stopped short of heeding a call by over a million people, who signed a petition last May calling on the 27-country bloc to prohibit such methods.
Conversion practices “have no place in our union,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, which flew the LGBTQ flag outside its headquarters in Brussels Wednesday.
Instead, the EU executive said it would issue a recommendation next year for member states to adopt national-level bans.
The United Nations has called for a ban worldwide, describing such practices — based on the notion that homosexuality is a disorder — as discriminatory, humiliating and a violation of bodily integrity.
Brussels argued however that it didn’t have the legal authority to ban the practices, and that any such move would be an encroachment on member states’ powers.
Bans already exist in eight of the EU’s 27 nations: Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Malta, Portugal and Spain.
EU lawmaker Melissa Camara, a lesbian member of the European Parliament group working for LGBTIQ+ rights, told AFP the commission’s response was a step in the right direction. But it was “far too timid” in view of “the damage and trauma caused by these practices”, she added.
