by Mike Andrew - SGN Staff Writer

The European Commission said on July 13 that respect for LGBT rights is a legal criterion for membership in the European Union.

The commission, which is the EU's executive body, cited the 1993 Copenhagen criteria for EU eligibility and Article 2 of the EU Treaty, which prohibit discrimination against 'minorities.'

It also cited Articles 10 and 19 of the EU Treaty and Article 21 of the European Charter on Fundamental Rights, all of which explicitly forbid discrimination on grounds of 'sexual orientation.'

'Rights of LGBT people thus form an integral part of both the Copenhagen political criteria for accession and the EU legal framework on combating discrimination,' the commission said. 'They are closely monitored by the EU commission, which reports annually on the progress made by enlargement countries with regard to the situation of the LGBT community.'

The commission's note on LGBT rights was sent to the news website EUobserver in response to a question arising from a May 21 riot in Yerevan, Armenia. Armenia is not an EU member, but the country has a partnership agreement with the EU dating from 1999.

A small pro-Gay rally in Yerevan was besieged by counter-demonstrators who shouted slogans referring to Gay people as a disease and a threat to children. That night one of Yerevan's few Gay bars was vandalized.

Bishop Hovakim Manukyan, an ecumenical officer of the Armenian Catholic Church, defended the anti-Gay protesters.

'It's not in our culture to accept homosexuals. I mean, we don't reject the person, but we reject the sin and this is our freedom as Armenians. Our culture does not accept this,' he told EUobserver in a recent interview.

Manukyan added that Armenia upholds basic human rights, but Gay rights are a 'secondary' issue where difference of opinion should be permitted.

'We have our cultural differences which should be respected ... These are questions on which you don't have consensus also in Europe. Europe is not just Western Europe. For instance, Poland is a strong Christian country, or Romania or Bulgaria, or Serbia - Armenia is closer to these countries in its understanding,' the bishop explained.

In some cases, EU entrants have negotiated opt-outs from EU laws, or transition periods for implementing culturally sensitive ones. The European Commission's statement now seems to foreclose that possibility, at least in the area of LGBT rights.

Ulrike Lunacek, an openly Lesbian Austrian member of the European Parliament and co-chair of the parliament's LGBT rights group, said the statement may block the membership of countries whose laws are hostile to LGBT rights.

'Accession of a country will not be possible if certain LGBTI rights are not put into law and into practice. Non-discrimination in the field of employment, for instance, has become part of the [conditions for accession],' she said.

'Protection of Pride marches has become a recurrent monitoring theme in the commission's progress reports on enlargement countries,' Lunacek added.

She said that EU institutions should work with culturally conservative countries on the EU's fringe rather than putting up barriers, however.

'That is what the EU also stands for: co-operation instead of confrontation, openness instead of fear ... And that is another good thing,' said Lunacek.

Croatia has been approved for EU membership in July 2013.

The current candidates for EU admittance are Iceland - which has a good record on LGBT rights - and Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey - which do not. Albania has applied but has not been officially recognized as a candidate nation.

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