Report on Racism and Xenophobia in the Member States of the EU

Foreword

On 1 March 2007, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) came into being, following the extension of the mandate of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC). This makes the current report a ‘transitional’ report, in that it has been produced on the basis of the EUMC’s legal base and mandate, but it is being published by the FRA. Whilst the equivalent reports in previous years were ‘EUMC Annual Reports’, this report does not have the title of FRA Annual Report. The first FRA Annual Report will be published in June 2008.

The current report covers the area of racism and xenophobia in the EU for the year 2006. The operation of the Racial Equality Directive provides an important context for much of this report. Last year’s EUMC Annual Report focused on the stages of transposition of the Racial Equality Directive in the EU Member States. The current report looks at the implementation of the directive and the initial evidence on how the legislation is applied by courts and tribunals, as well as how the specialised bodies are using their powers.

Whilst there was much progress in implementing the Racial Equality Directive in most Member States, there was wide variation in the degree to which sanctions had been applied or compensation awarded in cases of ethnic discrimination during 2006. In around half of the Member States, even with laws and procedures in place, there were no indications of any sanctions being applied. The very low level of complaints in some countries during 2006 suggests a rather low awareness of the existence of the specialised bodies. It seems, therefore, that some Member States need to do more in the way of publicity and campaigns targeting potential victims of discrimination in order to raise awareness of the specialised bodies and their powers.

Furthermore, not all specialised bodies disclose the grounds of discrimination for individual complaints, which makes it impossible to ascertain how many cases of ethnic discrimination were processed by the legal system during the year. This weakness relates to a broader message of this report, namely that for discrimination to be recognised and tackled there need to be systems in place for producing relevant and accurate data. This should include data on the circumstances of those groups who are potential victims of discrimination, in all the thematic areas of education, employment and housing, as well as on incidents of racist violence and crime. This is important for a number of reasons, not least because of the need for evidence-based policies to combat discrimination and racist crimes. For example, whilst there is evidence in this year’s report of some innovative positive action practices against discrimination in employment, such positive action is difficult to introduce and apply without accurate equality data on the employment circumstances of those groups who are the targets of such policies. Meanwhile, in the context of the continuing gaps in our knowledge resulting from of the patchiness of equality data, this report demonstrates examples in many Member States where research investigations have had the important function of identifying and bringing to public attention incidents and processes of racism and discrimination in the fields of employment, housing and education.

This year, the information and data collection activities for this report involved 27 National Focal Points (NFPs), not 25, including for the first time Bulgaria and Romania, who became full members of the European Union on 1 January 2007. As with previous Annual Reports from the EUMC, this report covers in turn the thematic areas of legal issues, employment, housing, education, and racist violence and crime. In addition, for a second year, there is a final chapter covering developments and policies at the EU level in combating racism and xenophobia. The FRA will continue the work of EUMC in supporting the European Union and its Member States in their efforts to fight racism and xenophobia, combat discrimination, promote equality and present positive messages of diversity in Europe. These will be particularly relevant and important activities during 2007 and 2008, designated respectively as the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All, and the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue.

I would like to thank the Management Board of the EUMC, and now of the FRA, and the staff of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights for their strong commitment, and for the hard work they have carried out over the last year, especially during the transformation process, which has been a challenge for all of us.

Beate Winkler

Interim Director

Download the Report at PDF format

Report on Racism and Xenophobia in the Member States of the EU