Has the EU Taken Comprehensive and Coherent Action to Combat Discrimination?

EU anti-discrimination action cannot be expected to be ‘comprehensive’ from a material scope perspective due to the nature of the EU itself and the limits derived from EU primary law (e.g. the closed list of discrimination grounds in Article 19 TFEU). However, EU anti-discrimination action could be more ‘coherent’ than it is now. This contribution builds on external relations’ literature and emergent discussions in EU anti-discrimination law to identify ‘coherence needs’ in EU anti-discrimination action at internal, systemic and external levels. Whilst recognising that divergences in protection for different discrimination grounds may be justified to specifically address diverse forms of disadvantage, various examples of (allegedly unjustified) substantive and procedural incoherence are examined. Despite the difficulties to adopt coherent EU action in this field due to rulemaking constraints in an enlarged Union, the ‘policy integration clauses’ in Articles 7, 8 and 10 TFEU point towards mainstreaming as a key tool to achieve more coherence across EU action in this area. The article also hints towards various interpretative options to address some of the incoherence examples discussed.