The General Act on Equal Treatment came into force in Germany in 2006. The purpose of the Act is to prevent or stop discrimination because of racism or on the grounds of ethnic origin, gender, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual identity in the field of labour law and with regard to some aspects of civil law.

The General Act on Equal Treatment, also called the Anti-Discrimination Act, transposes into German law four European directives on equal treatment adopted by the European Council between 2000 and 2004. These are:

• the Anti-Racism Directive (Council Directive 2000/43/EC)
• the Framework Directive on Employment (2000/78/EC)
• the Gender Directive (2002/73/EC). This directive has been recast together with other directives on the equal treatment of men and women in Directive 2006/54/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 July 2006 on the implementation of the principle of equal opportunities and equal treatment of men and women in matters of employment and occupation (Official Journal of the European Union L 204 23)
• and the Council Directive on equal treatment of men and women outside the world of work (2004/113/EC).

In their respective scopes, these directives provide definitions of the various kinds of discrimination and include, inter alia, obligations to impose effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions in cases of infringement of the principle of equal treatment as well as to facilitate the furnishing of proof by the persons affected.  These directives are intended to change social reality in the EU member states, i.e. not only to ban discrimination, but effectively to eliminate it.