Following the Renew Europe group’s request, a resolution calling for the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality and transgender identity, triggered by the newly adopted Ugandan ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill’, is set to be adopted by the European Parliament tomorrow.

“No one should never have to face threats of any kind for being who they are or loving how they love. Laws criminalising homosexuality or transgender identities are contrary to the most fundamental freedoms of the individual. States have no right of any kind on the relationships between consenting and free adults. This is what we, as European Parliament, wanted to make clear. The EU has the tools in its hands to change the situation: trade, diplomacy, international partnership agreements. With tomorrow’s vote, the European Parliament will show the way,” stressed Pierre Karleskind (Renaissance, France), the initiator of the resolution.

Ahead of today’s corresponding plenary debate, which is a reaction to the newly adopted Ugandan ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill’, the Renew Europe group calls upon Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to not promulgate the bill. The bill, imposing life imprisonment for the offence of ‘homosexuality’, up to 20 years in prison for ‘promoting homosexuality’, and even making some cases punishable by death, is one of the world’s harshest anti-gay laws.

If Museveni signs it into law, the Group requests that the European Commission withdraw the Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme and reinstate tariffs and quotas for all imports of goods from Uganda to the EU. The European Commission should further introduce a ‘no backtrack on human rights’ clause to all its international partnership agreements.