Rule: Article 18 requires equal treatment, transparency, proportionality and non-discrimination. Article 57 lists exclusion grounds; religious affiliation is not one of them.

Violation: the clauses add an extra eligibility condition directed at Scientology-related belief, teaching or association. That condition is unrelated to technical capacity, professional reliability or contract performance.

Evidence: TED notices and annexed forms show the declaration continuing as a suitability or contract condition after the 2022 ruling.

Consequence: public procurement is distorted because eligible economic operators can be screened out for a belief-related reason not allowed by EU procurement law.

Rule: when Member States apply EU procurement law, the EU Charter applies. Article 10 protects religion or belief; Article 21 prohibits discrimination; Article 7 protects private life.

Violation: a declaration that asks whether a person uses, teaches, disseminates or associates with a named belief system interferes with belief, privacy and equal treatment at the same time.

Evidence: the forms do not ask for concrete misconduct. They ask for distancing from Scientology-related identity, teaching, courses or methods.

Consequence: the state creates two classes of bidders and workers: those able to sign the religious denial and those excluded because conscience prevents them from signing.

Rule: personal data revealing religious or philosophical beliefs is special-category data. Processing requires a valid legal basis and must satisfy lawfulness, purpose limitation, minimisation and necessity.

Violation: the declarations collect or infer belief-related information as a condition of access to a contract, grant or job. Consent is not freely given where refusal means exclusion from public opportunities.

Evidence: severe forms extend the declaration to employees, subcontractors and persons deployed during performance, multiplying the data-protection problem across the supply chain.

Consequence: public authorities and contractors risk creating and retaining unlawful religious-data records without necessity or proportionality.

Rule: employment equality law prohibits discrimination based on religion or belief and protects workers from being pressured to disclose or renounce belief as a condition of work.

Violation: Bavaria/Hamburg-style variants and staff-removal clauses require companies to certify or police the beliefs, courses or associations of employees and subcontractors.

Evidence: the document identifies variants requiring contractors to exclude staff during performance if they attend relevant courses or use the targeted technology.

Consequence: the state indirectly forces private employers to do religious screening that the state could not lawfully impose directly.

Rule: OSCE/ODIHR standards require state neutrality, non-discrimination and security measures based on demonstrable conduct, not stereotypes about a religious or belief community.

Violation: faith-breaker clauses target a named belief community and demand negative declarations about identity, teaching, course attendance or dissemination, even without individual evidence of wrongdoing.

Evidence: German court findings reported no factual indicators or nothing evident after years of surveillance, yet templates continued and TED counts rose after the constitutional ruling.

Consequence: an administrative form becomes a public signal that one belief community is presumptively suspect, encouraging private-sector exclusion and self-censorship.