Stuck at the Cross-Road: Intersectional Aspirations in the EU Anti-Discrimination Legal Framework

Abstract

This paper seeks to critically assess the way the EU guarantees the protection of individuals who are discriminated on multiple grounds. As EU law does not recognise that multiple identities can intersect, it is argued that the current anti-discrimination legal framework is not adequate to deal with claims of multiple and intersectional discrimination. Recent legislative developments have, however, raised the issue of multiple discrimination and intersectional disadvantage but they remain guarded and often take a simplistic, rather than an intersectional approach. The EU anti-discrimination legal framework appears to be at a cross-road and choices made by the legislator to promote the concept of multiple discrimination over that of intersectional disadvantage will have profound consequences for the EU anti-discrimination legal framework as a whole and its future developments.