Claudiu-Richard Târziu, ECR MEP, issued a strong statement regarding the new Gender Equality Strategy proposed by the European Commission, arguing that it represents “an attempt at ideological reset for European society,” rather than a genuine effort to protect women or promote human dignity.
According to him, the document currently under debate in Brussels would lay the groundwork for a profound transformation with negative consequences for the fundamental values of the European Union and for social order.
“It does not protect women. It does not defend human dignity.”
“What the European Commission calls a Gender Equality Strategy is, in reality, an attempt to ideologically reset European society. It does not protect women. It does not defend human dignity. Instead, it attacks the foundations of our civilization and turns human rights into a political tool with variable geometry,” Târziu said.
He emphasized that the individual — not a “privileged social category” — should be at the core of any genuine democracy.
Criticism of “Institutionalized Discrimination”
The MEP argues that the strategy promoted by EU institutions would replace the individual with the “identity group,” and that in the name of an artificial equality, it would introduce measures he considers discriminatory.
“The strategy proposed by the European Commission replaces the individual with the identity group. In the name of artificial equality, it introduces institutionalized discrimination: mandatory quotas, professional advantages based on gender, the penalization of merit, and the marginalization of competence. This is not justice; it is a form of modern segregation, concealed behind cheap propaganda,” Târziu stated.
He firmly rejects the idea that professional performance should be subordinated to gender identity:
“I do not accept that performance be subordinated to identity. I do not accept that women become mere statistical instruments in the hands of bureaucrats. I do not accept that men be treated as guilty by default.”
“Criticism Becomes a Moral Offense”
The MEP also warned about the public debate climate that such a strategy would, in his view, generate.
“Even worse, this Strategy turns critical opinion into a moral offense. Anyone who dares to raise sensitive questions or deviate from the official line is automatically labeled an extremist, a eurosceptic, or anti-European. This is the real danger: when a regime becomes intolerant of critical debate, democracy is on the verge of disappearing.”
A Call to Protect Family and Education
Târziu insisted that the core values of European society should not be reshaped through ideological “experiments.”
“I refuse to let children’s education be turned into an ideological laboratory. I refuse to see the family relativized and pushed into a defensive position. I refuse to see Europe reshaped according to doctrinal obsessions that have no connection to people’s real lives,” he said.
In his view, authentic equality cannot exist if it is imposed through coercive means:
“There is no equality through discrimination. There is no freedom through coercion. There is no progress through social engineering.”
Vote Against in the European Parliament
Claudiu Richard Târziu said he voted against the Gender Equality Strategy in the European Parliament and pledged to continue opposing similar measures.
“As a Romanian and conservative MEP, I have the duty to defend personal freedom and the natural order of society, not the experiments of those who believe that human beings can be rewritten at will. I voted against this Strategy and I will fight for its replacement with an approach that respects the dignity of every European — woman or man — without ideologies, without pressure, and without the privileges of groups invented in the laboratories of bureaucratic progressivism.”
