“Conference on the Future of Europe” in the face of changes in the equality and anti-discrimination policy

Abstract

The Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) ran from spring 2021 to spring 2022. It was a joint venture of the European Parliament, the Council of the EU, the European Commission and the Member States, involving many debates and discussions with EU citizens on Europe’s challenges, priorities and future. The participants of the CoFoE formulated two proposals for changes in the equality and anti-discrimination policy of the EU. The first is to pay subsidies or give tax credits to entrepreneurs who employ an EU-set percentage (quota) of women, young, elderly and minority people for a certain minimum period. According to the second proposal, the EU would oblige companies (depending on the number of employees) to set up kindergartens and playgrounds there, and grant companies subsidies to create affordable kindergartens. This article aimed to determine whether the proposals of the participants of the CoFoE confirm or mark a new direction of the EU equality and anti-discrimination policy. The research, which was carried out by the method of qualitative content analysis, was limited to the ideational dimension of the aforementioned policy. The analyses were contextual, where the context was the current EU equality and anti-discrimination policy as well as the employment, labour and social market policy models. The conducted analysis allowed to conclude that the possible adoption of the CoFoE proposal would not contribute to fundamental changes but could only strengthen the already existing tendencies and solutions in the current EU equality and anti-discrimination policy.