Racism in Europe is getting worse, not better, EU rights agency finds
The EU Fundamental Rights Agency reports that nearly half of people of African descent have faced racial discrimination — and that most incidents are never reported.
Marylyn Marthins
Chief Editor
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The EU Fundamental Rights Agency's 'Being Black in the EU' findings make for sobering reading: almost 45% of people of African descent surveyed reported experiencing racial discrimination, up from 39% in an earlier round.
Discrimination clusters in access to work and housing, and harassment is widespread. Yet only a small fraction of victims ever report incidents to authorities or equality bodies — a silence born of mistrust and low awareness of rights.
More than half of respondents believed a recent police stop was due to racial profiling, eroding trust in the very institutions meant to protect them.
The data also tracks economic harm: higher rates of insecure work, over-qualification and difficulty making ends meet compared with the general population.
The agency urges governments to recognise structural racism, strengthen anti-discrimination enforcement, improve data, and involve affected communities in designing responses. Naming the problem, it argues, is the first step to ending it.
