MEPs Call on Vucic, Brnabic To Enable EuroPride

European Parliament (Photo: European Union 2019/EP/Gabor Kovacs)

Around 150 members of the European Parliament (EP) called on Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Prime Minister Ana Brnabic on Aug. 31 to enable the holding of the pride parade within the pan-European LGBTIQ event EuroPride, saying that a ban on the gathering was not the solution, regardless of threats to its participants.

The letter, signed by 145 MEPs, including six deputy speakers of the EP, five whips and the president of the EP Delegation for relations with Serbia, Alessandra Moretti, reads that the pride parade was "a peaceful means of political advocacy and one of the ways in which the universal right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly is crystallized," the Socialists and Democrats caucus in the EP has stated.

In the letter, also addressed to the Serbian minister for European integration, Jadranka Joksimovic, the chief of the EU Delegation in Serbia, Emanuele Giaufret, the general secretary of the European External Action Service (EEAS), Stefano Sannino, and the EU ambassador for gender issues and diversity, Stela Roner-Grubacic, the MEPs stressed that pride parades were "the pillar of social visibility of LGBTIQ activism."

"The decision for Belgrade to host EuroPride 2022 was accompanied by numerous expectations. Belgrade has been fighting for years for the equality of LGBTIQ persons in the region. The EuroPride in Belgrade this September will therefore be a turning point, both for the movement and for the region," reads the letter, the initiative for which came from the inter-parliamentary group for LGBTIQ rights.