BRUSSELS, September 26, 2006  –  The Latvian Parliament voted last week to support an amendment to the country’s Labour Law that will explicitly ban sexual orientation discrimination in employment.

Until the vote, Latvia was the only member state of the European Union which failed to comply with provisions of the 2000 European Union employment equality directive requiring EU member states to protect employees from discrimination based on their sexual orientation.

In a statement, ILGA-Europe welcomed this long-awaited decision and thanked the Latvian politicians who supported this amendment and stood against prejudice and discrimination.

However, ILGA-Europe remains concerned that it took Latvia such a long and bitter battle to implement this legislation despite the country’s obligation as EU member state to implement EU directives.

During the parliamentary debate, some Latvian parliamentarians once again expressed open hatred and prejudice towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

ILGA-Europe is also concerned that the decision to implement the EU directive was taken with a relatively marginal majority (46 parliamentarians in favour, 35 against, 3 abstained and 9 did not vote).

In addition, this vote only comes after the President of Latvia returned this amended legislation back to the Parliament for reconsideration after a first rejection by Latvian parliamentarians.

“We welcome this decision of the Latvian Parliament to ban sexual orientation discrimination in employment,” said Patricia Prendiville, Executive Director of ILGA-Europe.

“Latvia finally cemented in its legislation one of the key EU principles which is that no one in the European Union should be discriminated against in the labour market because of their sexuality. We are glad that enough Latvian parliamentarians had the courage to adopt this legislation as part of Latvia’s commitment to values of equality and non-discrimination and prevent unnecessary, costly and embarrassing infringement procedures.

“We can finally conclude that six years after its adoption, the Directive’s requirement to ban sexual orientation discrimination in employment will soon be transposed in all EU member states,” she concluded.

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