Current projects of the Observatory
On this page, we present the projects we are currently working on or that we have just completed with recent publications.EU Monitoring: Current socio-political developments in Europe
Our EU monitoring provides a regular overview of the activities of the European Union, the Council of Europe and the European civil society organisations in social policy.If you would like to receive the EU-Monitoring by e-mail, please write us stating your name and organisation: beobachtungsstelle (a) iss-ffm.de
Please note that the EU monitoring is only published in German.
European Social Policy
The EU can take initiatives to coordinate the social policies of the Member States (Article 5 TFEU) and thus support their sociopolitical cooperation and set minimum standards throughout Europe. Articles 151 to 161 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) provide the legal basis for social policy. Common goals of the EU and its Member States are, for instance, the improvement of living and working conditions and combating exclusion.This focus issue introduces European Social Policy and provides an overview of its legal framework and related instruments as well as a selection of current sociopolitical initiatives and measures.
Please note that the focus issue is only published in German.
Combating sexualized violence against children and young people
Sexualized violence against children and young people is steadily increasing. In 2023 alone, there were 1.3 million reported cases of child sexual abuse in the EU. A UNICEF report from 2020 shows that one in five children in Europe has experienced some form of sexualized violence.There are currently various initiatives at the EU level to adapt legislation to combat the sexual abuse of children. One focus here is on dealing with digital violence. This is because digital technologies further exacerbate sexualized violence against children and young people and make it a cross-border phenomenon: the internet offers perpetrators both anonymity and platforms on which images of abuse and instructions for abuse can be exchanged across borders.
Against this backdrop, the Observatory is working on an overview of national criminal and family law regulations to protect children and young people from sexualized violence online and offline. On the other hand, the Observatory is compiling a dossier focusing on sexualized violence (online/digital) against young people.
Justice and equality for intersex people
The I in LGBTIQ+ stands for intersex people. These are people whose sex characteristics cannot be clearly categorised as either female or male.
Intersex people experience human rights violations and discrimination. Particularly problematic are surgical and other medical interventions performed on intersex babies or young children without their consent.
The United Nations considers these interventions to be human rights violations, and the Council of Europe recommends that its Member States legally prohibit them. Intersex activist organisations such as OII Europe have developed and published criteria for good practice in policy-making to protect intersex children.
In the context of the legally required evaluation of the German law banning surgical interventions on intersex children (§ 1631e BGB), the forthcoming Council of Europe Recommendation on Equality for Intersex People and recent developments in several European states, the Observatory is currently working on a European comparative analysis of Germany, Malta, and Portugal. The analysis aims to deepen our understanding of the diversity of regulation when it comes to banning surgical and other medical interventions on the sex characteristics of intersex people, and to shed some light on the implementation of such regulation.
In the second half of 2025, a thematic Dossier and Infographic will complement our engagement with equality for intersex people.