this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
406 points (97.0% liked)
Europe
8484 readers
1 users here now
News/Interesting Stories/Beautiful Pictures from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: Thunder mountain, Germany, 🇩🇪 ) Feel free to post submissions for banner pictures
Rules
(This list is obviously incomplete, but it will get expanded when necessary)
- Be nice to each other (e.g. No direct insults against each other);
- No racism, antisemitism, dehumanisation of minorities or glorification of National Socialism allowed;
- No posts linking to mis-information funded by foreign states or billionaires.
Also check out !yurop@lemm.ee
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
But are any of those things really what it really is about?
The ban is in public sector workplaces such as administration. It is not a ban religious symbols in the private sector. Also the EU court stated that making exemptions to accomodate the religious will complicate matters as it could become a slippery slope in terms of the guidelines expected of a secular and unbiased state.
I quote from the official statement of the ruling court:
"(1) Article 2(2)(a) of Council Directive 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000 establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation
must be interpreted to mean that a provision of a public body’s terms of employment which prohibits employees from wearing any visible sign of political, philosophical or religious belief in the workplace, with the aim of putting in place an entirely neutral administrative environment, does not constitute, with regard to employees who intend to exercise their freedom of religion and conscience through the visible wearing of a sign or an item of clothing with religious connotations, direct discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief, for the purposes of that directive, provided that that provision is applied in a general and undifferentiated way.
(2) Article 2(2)(b) of Directive 2000/78
must be interpreted to mean that a difference of treatment indirectly based on religion or belief arising from a provision of a public body’s terms of employment which prohibits employees from wearing any visible sign of political, philosophical or religious belief in the workplace may be justified by that body’s desire to put in place an entirely neutral administrative environment, provided, first, that that desire responds to a genuine need on the part of that body, which it is for that body to demonstrate; second, that that difference of treatment is appropriate for the purpose of ensuring that that desire is properly realised; and, third, that that prohibition is limited to what is strictly necessary."
Source: https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=273313&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=3078169
Right. But why was the ban enacted?
It is in the quote text. It says that public sector administration has to be religiously and politically neutral and any overt symbols or clothing of said convictions cannot be allowed by administrative staff.
I even link the entire statement of the court and you didn't even bother to read it.