As of: January 31, 2024, 3:13 p.m
By: Giorgia Grimaldi
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Germany is hesitant about an EU directive to protect women.
A member of parliament explains what is wrong and why a compromise is urgently needed.
“The protection of millions of women from violence in the EU is at stake,” begins the open letter written by Kristina Lunz, activist and co-founder of the Center for Feminist Foreign Policy, on January 29th.
Together with over 100 well-known German women, including the climate activist Luisa Neubauer and Reem Alabali-Radovan, State Minister for Integration, Migration and Racism, she addresses the German federal government and the Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann.
The signatories call on Buschmann to give up his “blockade stance” and work to protect women.
The reason for this is a draft EU directive that aims to standardize protection against gender-based violence and its prosecution in the member states.
But Germany is not following suit.
An EU politician tells
BuzzFeed News Deutschland
, a portal from Ippen.Media, why time for a solution is running out.
Copy of Thumbnail Split - 2024-01-31T150330.462.jpg © Phototek/imagebroker/IMAGO.
Editing: BuzzFeed DE
What is the EU directive on violence against women about?
On November 25, 2022, on the International Day for Combating Violence against Women, the European Commission called on the European Parliament to submit a proposal for a directive to combat violence against women and domestic violence as soon as possible.
The directive is intended to anchor common minimum standards in EU legislation, for example for the criminalization of certain forms of violence against women (e.g. rape or cyberbullying).
But also protecting victims and improving access to justice.
This draft directive was presented last March and is now up for discussion.
More on the topic: A third of men accept violence against women?
Why the message is problematic
That is why Germany is blocking the draft directive
Federal Justice Minister Buschmann has legal concerns.
In the draft guidelines, for example, the criminal offense of rape is to be standardized internationally under the criminal area of “human trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children”.
However, according to Buschmann, the EU is exceeding its competences because it is not responsible for national criminal legislation - except for cross-border crime.
This is often the case with human trafficking, but not with sexual crimes.
Criminal law expert Tatjana Hörnle explains to
Deutschlandfunk Kultur
why she agrees with Buschmann.
“Of course it is a politically defensible position to say that if criminal policy is not working well in individual countries, then why don't we transfer it to the EU.
But that would be very far-reaching structural changes.”
Hörnle advises against this: “That would mean that the European countries would have to agree that they wanted to regulate their criminal law together in the future, which would be a lot to speak against.
Because of course the procedures within the EU are very cumbersome, because the need to make compromises is much greater than in national parliaments.”
The signatories of the letter see it differently.
They say that the lives of many women depend on an EU-wide regulation and that Germany's approval would have a "signaling effect" on other countries.
France and Hungary are also currently blocking the draft directive.
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The expert understands Buschmann and hopes for a compromise
BuzzFeed News Germany
asked French EU Parliament member Sylvie Brunet.
She is on the EU Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality.
In June 2023, Brunet launched the EU-wide law on pay transparency between men and women.
Brunet understands the legal objection and hopes to “find a compromise” in the trilogue, i.e. the discussion between the Commission, Parliament and the Council of Ministers at the beginning of February.
In order for this to succeed, one must first start with the definitions of criminal offenses such as rape, which are regulated very differently across the EU.
EU politician gives gloomy forecast if no compromise is reached
“But we should find a compromise quickly because we are running out of time.”
The MP is referring to the EU Council Presidency, the presidency that the member states share equally.
Every six months, a different country takes over the presidency.
Belgium has currently held this position since January 1, 2024 until the end of June.
But from the end of June Hungary will take over the Council Presidency.
“And given the political mood, it cannot be assumed that we will get this proposal passed with Hungary in the presidency.
Then the draft directive is probably off the table for now,” says Brunet.
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