A Bird’s Eye View on EU Anti-Discrimination Law: The Impact of the 2000 Equality Directives

Abstract

The year 2000 marked the birth of EU anti-discrimination law as a field in its own right, with the adoption of two major Equality Directives. They extended the prohibition of discrimination with five additional grounds and expanded the material scope of equality regulation. Having reached its eighteenth birthday in the year 2018, EU anti-discrimination law can now celebrate its adulthood and deserves a bird’s eye exploration of its achievements, failures, and prospects. The present article provides this exploration by zooming in on these twin Directives, as well as on the “new” grounds of discrimination planted therein, namely race and ethnicity — the grounds introduced by the Race Equality Directive — religion, sexual orientation, age, and disability — the grounds introduced by Framework Equality Directive — and the related jurisprudence of European courts. It first outlines the genesis and main stages in the development of EU anti-discrimination law, followed by a discussion of major normative and practical themes emerging in EU anti-discrimination law after 2000, such as the personal and material scope of the Directives, new forms of discrimination, mechanisms to counteract discrimination, and the proceduralization of EU anti-discrimination law.

Keywords: EU law, anti-discrimination law, Equality Directives, minorities protection, non-discrimination