EU Officials Must Practise the Equality They Defend

Non-discrimination is not merely a European policy objective. It is a daily obligation for every official exercising authority in the Union’s name.

The European Union cannot credibly demand equality from governments, employers and citizens if its own officials allow personal preferences or inherited prejudices to influence access, dialogue or administrative decisions. EU staff must treat religious, philosophical and civil-society organisations according to objective and transparent criteria—especially when those organisations are unfamiliar, controversial or unpopular.

The European Union presents itself as a community founded on human dignity, equality, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. These values guide its legislation, diplomacy and relations with countries seeking closer ties with Europe.

Yet they also create a more immediate obligation. The people who represent EU institutions must embody those principles in their everyday conduct.

An EU official is not simply an employee completing administrative tasks. The official exercises public authority. An unanswered letter, an invitation list, a consultation, a funding decision or a refusal to meet can determine who gains access to European institutions and whose voice remains outside the room.

For that reason, EU staff must be more than personally opposed to discrimination. They must actively prevent personal assumptions, institutional habits and external pressure from shaping their official decisions.

Equality begins at the institutional door

The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights prohibits discrimination on grounds including religion or belief, political opinion, ethnic or social origin, disability, age and sexual orientation. It also recognises the right to have one’s affairs handled impartially, fairly and within a reasonable time by EU institutions.

These are not abstract promises. They apply when an official decides whom to consult, which correspondence deserves an answer, which organisations are invited to participate and whose concerns are considered legitimate.

The European Code of Good Administrative Behaviour makes the obligation particularly clear. Officials must respect equality of treatment and avoid unjustified discrimination. Any difference in treatment must be based on objective and relevant features of the case.

The Code also requires impartiality, independence, objectivity, fairness and consistency. An official should exclude irrelevant considerations and must not engage in arbitrary action or preferential treatment.

Religion or belief is expressly included among the protected grounds.

This means that a public servant cannot lawfully or ethically decide that one community is worthy of dialogue while another is not simply because the second community is smaller, newer, less familiar or viewed unfavourably by particular political, religious or activist networks.

Personal opinions must not become public barriers

EU officials remain individuals. They have their own convictions, associations and opinions. They may privately disagree with the beliefs or practices of an organisation seeking engagement with the institutions.

But public service requires a disciplined separation between personal views and institutional responsibilities.

An official does not need to admire an organisation in order to treat it fairly. Nor does agreeing to a meeting, receiving a submission or including a minority voice in a consultation amount to endorsing that organisation’s beliefs.

This distinction is particularly important in the field of religion or belief. Established churches may be familiar to officials because they possess longstanding offices in Brussels, professional advocacy teams and regular access to policymakers. Smaller communities may have fewer resources and may be known mainly through hostile descriptions provided by their opponents.

If familiarity becomes the measure of legitimacy, institutional dialogue will reproduce existing inequalities. Groups already inside the system will remain visible, while less established communities will struggle even to correct misconceptions about themselves.

Non-discrimination matters most when an official encounters a community that is unpopular. It is easy to defend equal treatment for organisations that already enjoy social approval. The real measure of institutional integrity is whether the same standards are applied to Muslims, Jews, Christians, Baha’is, Hindus, Buddhists, Scientologists, members of the Unification Church, humanists, atheists and other religious or philosophical minorities.

Equal treatment does not require agreement. It requires fair procedures.

Article 17 must not become a closed circle

The principle carries particular significance under Article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. This provision requires the Union to maintain an “open, transparent and regular” dialogue with churches, religious associations or communities, and philosophical and non-confessional organisations.

Each of those words matters.

“Open” should mean that participation is not controlled by an informal circle of favoured interlocutors. “Transparent” should mean that organisations can understand the criteria used to select participants. “Regular” should mean that engagement is an institutional practice rather than a privilege granted selectively.

Of course, not every organisation can attend every meeting. Invitations may legitimately depend on the subject, available space, expertise, geographical relevance or the need to ensure a balanced discussion.

But those criteria should be defined in advance, applied consistently and capable of being explained. They should not be replaced by labels such as “acceptable,” “mainstream” or “controversial” when those terms conceal subjective judgements.

Where an organisation is excluded, the relevant question should not be whether an official personally approves of it. The question should be whether there is an objective reason connected to the purpose of the meeting.

The European Commission’s guidelines on implementing Article 17 should therefore be read alongside the Union’s wider duties of equality, impartiality and good administration. Dialogue cannot be genuinely open if access depends upon the unrecorded preferences of individual gatekeepers.

Discrimination is often procedural

Institutional discrimination does not always arrive in the form of an openly hostile decision. It can appear through selective silence, unexplained delays, invitations repeatedly sent to the same organisations or reliance on claims that the affected community never has an opportunity to answer.

It may also arise when officials consult a group’s opponents about whether that group should be heard. Such a method would be unacceptable in most other fields of equality policy. It should not become normal simply because religion is involved.

Procedural discrimination can be difficult to identify because each isolated decision may appear minor. Over time, however, these decisions create patterns of privileged access and systematic exclusion.

The remedy is not complicated. EU services should keep adequate records, publish meaningful participation criteria, rotate interlocutors, provide reasons for adverse decisions and create practical routes through which excluded organisations can request reconsideration.

Managers should also recognise that non-discrimination training cannot focus only on relations among staff. Officials who interact with citizens, associations and religious or belief communities need practical guidance on unconscious bias, hostile third-party information and the distinction between legitimate risk assessment and reputational prejudice.

Scrutiny is not discrimination—but it must be equal

Equal treatment does not mean that EU institutions should abandon scrutiny. Organisations seeking institutional engagement can reasonably be asked about their legal status, governance, representativeness, expertise, transparency or compliance with applicable rules.

Serious evidence of unlawful conduct should not be ignored.

But scrutiny must be evidence-based and comparable. A minority organisation should not face a heavier burden merely because accusations have been repeated about it. Nor should larger or politically connected organisations receive less examination because officials already know their representatives.

The same questions should be asked of comparable applicants. The same quality of evidence should be required. Organisations should normally have an opportunity to respond to claims that materially affect their access or treatment.

Rumour cannot become an administrative criterion. Social controversy cannot replace factual assessment. The rule of law requires individual examination, not guilt by association.

European credibility starts at home

The EU regularly calls upon governments beyond its borders to protect civil society, religious minorities, human-rights defenders and independent voices. Those appeals lose authority when European institutions appear inaccessible to minorities within the Union itself.

Institutional credibility depends not only on declarations adopted in Brussels or Strasbourg. It depends on the conduct of the officials who answer emails, prepare invitation lists, assess applications and advise decision-makers.

The European Commission states that EU staff must be independent, impartial, objective and loyal. These principles should be visible in outcomes, not merely recorded in internal rules.

No official should possess an informal monopoly over which communities may speak to Europe. No personal prejudice should become an institutional barrier. No minority should need political influence merely to receive the fair consideration promised by EU law.

Non-discrimination is not an optional expression of goodwill. For those entrusted with European public authority, it is part of the job.