This contribution focuses on the specific terminological features of the first European directives relating to equality. More precisely, this study is based on the “Council Directive 2000/43/EC of 29 June 2000 implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin” and the “Council Directive 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000 establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation”, as well as on a selection of 24 IATE’s terminological records pertaining to the juridical field. This analysis is characterized by a contrastive approach as it will be based on the French and Italian versions of the above mentioned directives, which form a parallel corpus of about 9,000 words per language (9,039 French words – 8,416 Italian words). Terminology is conceived here as a socio-communicative and cognitive activity which strictly depends on its context of use. The legislative nature of European directives is thus not sufficient to explain the relative terminological choices pertaining to equality. Legislative terminology needs to be considered with respect to the institutional as well as multilingual nature of lawmaking on equality at the European Union. This analysis aims at comparing the denominative variation of equality terminology in French and Italian in order to identify the main contextual and conceptual factors which trigger this kind of terminological features, at the European Union. Our results will show that, in the context of the European Union, the concept of equality is not the subject of an effective harmonization, since its denominative variation still depends on multiple variables, among which the terminological choices proper to each official language of the Union.