As it has in the past, the European Union has issued an ultimatum to countries hoping to join the EU: get better on gay rights or you won’t be allowed in.
A new LGBT survey, conducted over the next year, will determine whether hopefuls like Turkey, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo sufficiently protect gay people by gathering “data on levels of discrimination, hate crimes and legal protection experienced by LGBT people.”
Some of the EU’s specific concerns in its 2012 accession report, according to the Gay News Network:
The report recommended Turkey include homophobia and transphobia in hate crime provisions and criticised the Turkish Army for continuing to classify homosexuality as a ‘psychosexual illness’.
Serbia’s government was rebuked for a “lack of political will … to ensure the safety of the participants of the Pride Parade” that was supposed to be held in Belgrade last year.
Serbia, for its part, seems to be making progress—a district court recently sentenced a far-right leader who has incited violence at Belgrade Pride Parades (which even became the subject of an award-winning parody film, The Parade).
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