Racism on the rise across EU

Racism is increasing in eight EU countries, according to the first report by the EU’s new Fundamental Rights Agency.

The report, released on 27 August, says there has been an upward trend in recorded racist crime in 2006 in Germany, France and the UK as well as Denmark, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia and Finland.

In contrast, just three of the member states which submitted data – the Czech Republic, Austria and Sweden – saw a lessening of racist crime in 2006.

The report, which was presented to the European parliament's civil liberties committee on 27 August, identifies ethnic discrimination and unequal employment opportunities as serious EU-wide problems.

"In particular, visible minorities, refugees, asylum seekers and the Roma appear to suffer the brunt of abusive treatment," the report says.

The Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) was created on 1 March to replace the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia.

In its report, the agency criticises the EU member states for failing to collect comprehensive data on racist crime, saying only 11 member states have put together adequate data.

"FRA is unable to present a full picture for all EU countries due to a severe lack of national data," the report says.

The paper adds that "five of the EU’s 27 member states did not publish any national criminal justice data on racist crime in 2005 or 2006".

"This report should help move the EU down the path of reporting racist crime seriously - it should spur other member states to report better," MEP Claude Moraes told theparliament.com.

"It is good to gather statistics at EU level in order to spur some positive comparison," he added.

MEP Sarah Ludford, who is the vice-president of parliament's subcommittee on human rights, said the lack of data from so many member states "indicates a lack of seriousness in tackling the scourge of race hate crime".

"It is a scandal in a European Union which claims to stand for human rights that 7 years after [EU discrimination] laws came into force, many EU member states still lack effective enforcement or sanctions, or redress for victims," she added.

"The European commission must be encouraged to take these countries to the European Court of Justice."

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