LOCAL EURO-MP SHORTLISTED FOR MEP OF THE YEAR AWARD

1.24.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 19th Sep 2008

West Midlands Liberal Democrat MEP Liz Lynne has been short listed for the prestigious MEP of the Year award.

The MEP awards are an annual competition allowing Euro MPs to vote for their colleagues across ten different categories and Ms Lynne was nominated in the employment and social affairs section for her work.

Liz Lynne, who is Vice President of the European Parliament's Employment and Social Affairs Committee said:

"Being an active member of Employment and Social Affairs for the past few years has given me the chance to make a real difference to those issues I care about. I have improved rights for disabled and older people, cut unnecessary 'red tape' for businesses and worked to ensure better protection for employees within the health sector.

"I have also worked on numerous health and safety issues to make sure they are only addressed at European level if the scientific and medical evidence proves the need and that it can't be better done at member state level. This nomination will give me the enthusiasm to pursue all of these interests with an even greater vigour.

"I will continue to work on key issues on which I have been campaigning recently, including ensuring that anti-discrimination is fully covered by EU legislation. All EU citizens deserve to be treated equally and hopefully discrimination in access to goods and services on the grounds of disability, age, sexual orientation and religion or belief will soon become a thing of the past.

"Again, I thank my colleagues and look forward to all of the challenges and tasks ahead."

ENDS

Notes:

The MEP Awards' ceremony will take place in Brussels on the 8th of October. Liz Lynne faces competition in the employment category from Karin Jöns (Germany) and Marie Panayotopoulos-Cassiotou (Greece). More information can be found at: http://www.theparliament.com/mepawards/.

Text of Liz Lynne's recent report on progress made in anti-discrimination measures, as adopted by the European Parliament: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&mode=XML&reference=A6-2008-0159&language=EN

Current EU anti-discrimination laws prohibit discrimination in the workplace on all grounds (Employment Directive 2000) but only provides protection against discrimination in access to goods and services on the basis of gender and race (Equal Treatment Directive and the Race Directive respectively).

Liz Lynne's campaign and petition to persuade the Commission and EU Member States to press ahead with a new directive outlawing discrimination in access to goods and services can be found here: www.signtostopdiscrimination.org