Member of the European Parliament for Malta, Roberta Metsola this morning welcomed the strong vote in the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) in favour of a recommendation for a future EU roadmap against homophobia and discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.

MEP Roberta Metsola is the spokesperson of the Group of the European People's Party on the dossier and piloted the important negotiations on behalf of the Group throughout the last months. The vote in Committee passed with only two votes against.

Commenting on the report, Dr Metsola said that "the report is the result of months of negotiations with different political groups and comes following important discussions with NGOs and stakeholders from different viewpoints in Malta and the EU. We have achieved a text that strikes the right balance between safeguarding the rights of all our citizens and respecting the competence of Member States to legislate in this area themselves."

MEP Metsola said that "the problems LGBTI people are facing are serious: discrimination, violence and harassment are persistent phenomena that must be addressed, in Malta and throughout the European Union. The vote this morning sent a strong message to our societies and showed a broad consensus across the political spectrum to tackle these issues."

The report builds on previous requests by the Parliament for the European Commission to work on an EU equality roadmap for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) persons.

The report adopted today calls on the European Commission to make proposals to ensure non-discrimination for LGBTI people in a number of fields and calls for action on hate crimes to be better tackled across the EU.

"Importantly, the proposals respect the principle of subsidiarity, whereby the European Union and Member States must stick to their respective competences. This is a first step and the report must still be passed by the European Parliament's plenary before it is final" said MEP Metsola.

In a statement, MEP Ulrike Lunacek, author of the report and Co-President of the European Parliament's LGBT Intergroup, added:

"This report should encourage the Commission to—at last!—present a coherent approach to protect the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people across policy areas it's responsible for. I am very pleased the Committee adopted this report with such a large cross-group majority. The report adopts a balanced approach, and I will be working with all political groups to ensure any doubts are addressed before the text goes to plenary."

The report is expected to be voted in plenary prior to the European Parliament elections next year.