Help us tell the European Commission what it needs to hear
This Time, Let’s Be Heard
Until 24 June 2025, the European Commission is collecting public input to shape the next LGBTIQ+ Equality Strategy for 2026–2030. On paper, this might sound like progress. In reality, the consultation risks repeating the same strategic failures that have allowed attacks on LGBTIQ+ rights to spread across the EU for the past five years.
That’s why Forbidden Colours is calling on all citizens, allies, and civil society organisations to respond — clearly, sharply, and collectively.
What’s wrong with the current approach?
The Commission still treats the rights of LGBTIQ+ people as a soft policy issue — something to be managed through dialogue and awareness, rather than enforced as a core part of EU law and values. It continues to rely on blocked legislative proposals and vague “best practices,” even while Member States like Hungary, Bulgaria, and Slovakia pass laws that violate fundamental rights, including bans on Pride marches and so-called “anti-LGBT propaganda” laws.
In 2020, the Commission underestimated the threat. In 2025, it has no excuse.
If the Commission fails again, it won’t just be failing LGBTIQ+ people — it will be failing democracy.
What do we want?
Forbidden Colours has already submitted a full contribution outlining what the next strategy must do:
- Use the Commission’s legal powers — including infringement procedures, interim measures, and financial conditionality.
- Stop relying on unanimity in Council — and focus on what the Commission can act on now.
- Fund and protect civil society, especially in countries where governments are targeting LGBTIQ+ organisations.
- Name the threat — clearly, politically, and without euphemism.
- Treat the rights of LGBTIQ+ people as a democracy issue — not “inclusion issues.”
What can you do?
You can help by responding to the consultation with the same clarity and urgency.
We’ve made it simple. All you have to do is:
- Go to the consultation page
- Click on ‘Give feedback’
- Create your account
- Post your contribution using our standard answers below, which you can modify as you wish to add your own comments.
It only takes 5 minutes, but it sends a strong signal: citizens are watching and we demand action.
If you’d like to provide a full answer to the consultation, you can click on ‘Go to consultation’ and get inspired by our full answer, which you can download below.
This is not a time for silence. It’s a time to fight back.
Join us. Demand a real strategy.
Tell the Commission: Do your job.
Models to answer the consultation
You can use these model answers you copy and modify to pass the message. They are about 2 000 characters long and you can use up to 4 000 characters to answer the consultation. Feel free to translate them into your own language and to add your personal demands or experience.
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Model Answer 1 I support the message below, shared by Forbidden Colours, and I urge the European Commission to act with courage, clarity, and urgency. The next LGBTIQ+ Equality Strategy must be a turning point — not just a policy refresh. The last strategy failed because it relied on soft tools, dead-on-arrival legislation, and a refusal to confront reality. The Commission still treats equality as a secondary “social” issue, when it is now one of the main fronts in the political fight for democracy across the EU. In several EU countries, governments are no longer dragging their feet — they are deliberately rolling back rights. LGBTIQ+ people are being scapegoated in campaigns, Pride marches are being banned, organisations are being surveilled, and censorship laws are spreading. This is not delay. It is strategy — and it is working. Yet the Commission still behaves as if we’re having a policy seminar. We’re not. This is a political emergency. And the next strategy cannot repeat the mistakes of the past. We don’t need more proposals that will be blocked in Council or vague dialogue with governments undermining rights. We need action that matches the crisis — using the tools the Commission already has. That means:
We don’t need more rainbow branding. We need protection. We don’t need warm words. We need action. There’s a political tsunami coming — and all the Commission is offering is an umbrella. |
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Model Answer 2 I’m writing to support the message from Forbidden Colours — and to say this as clearly as it needs to be said: if the Commission doesn’t wake up now, it will be complicit in the dismantling of human rights and democracy inside the EU. This is a political emergency. The last LGBTIQ+ Equality Strategy didn’t fail because of bad intentions — it failed because the Commission chose to look away while the fire was already burning. It offered soft tools, stillborn proposals, and best practice brochures while governments were actively targeting LGBTIQ+ people and hollowing out the rule of law. The enemy is inside the gates — and the Commission is still handing out welcome leaflets. Now, instead of changing course, the Commission is doubling down on the same failed approach. Acting like we’re still in an era of inclusion, when some governments are openly using LGBTIQ+ people as pawns to erode democracy. This isn’t slow progress. This is coordinated regression. Enough. We don’t need another glossy document listing values. We need the Commission to use the tools it already has. That means:
You say LGBTIQ+ rights are EU values? Prove it. Because if you don’t — you’re not just failing us. |
