What is the party’s position on anti-discrimination policy?

Only two of the seven political parties in the European Parliament are clearly calling for the speedy adoption of a blocked anti-discrimination directive ahead of the European elections, despite warnings from non-governmental organizations about the rise of racism.

Euronews looked at the manifestos of the main political parties competing for some of the 720 seats in the European Parliament after the June 6-9 EU-wide elections and found that only the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the Left clearly promised to press for the directive.

The European People’s Party (EPP), Renew Europe and the Greens/ALE mention the need to fight all forms of discrimination, racism and exclusion, but do not mention legislation.

The European Network Against Racism (ENAR), which urged candidates to sign the anti-racism pledge while in office in the run-up to the bloc-wide vote, is calling, for example, for the EU’s anti-racism action plan to be extended beyond 2025 and for some revision of the currently blocked text of the directive .

“We believe that this is perhaps an opportunity to evaluate the text and adopt a renewed legal framework on non-discrimination that can cover all forms of discrimination, as there are gaps in the current text of the Equal Treatment Directive,” Julie Pascoët, ENAR Policy Coordinator, told Euronews .

“There are things that remain unresolved: the racialization of migration policy, the exploitative economic system, the anti-Muslim narrative,” she added.

“Uptrend”

In 2008, the European Commission made its first attempt to create a comprehensive law on combating all types of discrimination, complementing existing labor market regulations. Members of the European Parliament adopted several resolutions, held a plenary debate on this topic in October 2019, and approved their latest position in November 2022.

However, the European Council, which consists of 27 member states, is blocking the directive, with some governments arguing that it infringes on national competences and that its implementation would be too costly.

The Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU published a progress report in May 2023, but it failed to obtain the necessary number of votes from member states to unblock the directive.

According to Swedish MEP Alice Kuhnke (Greens/ALE), rapporteur for the EU anti-discrimination directive, the current political climate, in which the influence of hard and far-right forces in the European Parliament should increase, makes the adoption of the text more urgent.

“I think that several Member States are hesitant and do not want this anti-discrimination directive to become a reality. They are afraid of some ‘monster’ that does not exist, and I also think we should call them out,” she said. he told Euronews.

“Accepting discrimination should not be accepted,” said Kuhnke, who as a former minister of culture and democracy changed Swedish anti-discrimination legislation.

“We know for sure that Black people living in the EU, but also LGBTQI+ people and people of Roma origin, are just some of the people who face discrimination in their everyday lives. The tragic thing is that this is not a downward trend, but an upward trend,” the MEP told Euronews.

The new migration pact may make the situation worse

AND Eurobarometer survey published in December 2023 found that more than half of the more than 26,400 respondents in 27 EU countries say there is widespread discrimination in their country on the basis of Roma, skin color, ethnic origin, gender identity or sexual orientation.

Meanwhile, around one in five respondents said they had personally felt discriminated against or experienced harassment in the last 12 months, an increase of four percentage points compared to the 2019 survey.

Meanwhile, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) was discovered. in a survey published in October last year that 45% of black people say they have experienced racial discrimination in the five years preceding the survey, up from 39% in the 2018 edition.

According to Kuhnke, the recently adopted New Pact on Migration and Asylum may inflame the situation even further.

“I am afraid that the Migration Pact and its various parts will not help us in the fight against racism and discrimination. On the contrary,” she said.

Meanwhile, ENAR also urges parties, especially progressive forces, to have a more diverse list of candidates.

“To what extent do European institutions really represent the diversity of people in Europe and beyond? There is definitely a deficit in the way, for example, racist people are represented in the largest Democratic chamber in the European Union,” Pascoët said.