The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) published on Thursday 10 September its 16th Annual Report compiling data on antisemitism recorded by international organisations and by official and unofficial sources in the 27 Member States, the United Kingdom, North Macedonia and Serbia.
However, the report reveals that major gaps in data collection remain. For the 16th consecutive year, this overview showed virtually no change.
However, it does reveal certain shortcomings, such as the multiplicity of collection methods or the total absence of official data in some Member States. In Hungary and Portugal, for example, there are no official data on reported antisemitic incidents for 2019.
It also appears that official data collection systems do not always classify incidents as antisemitic.
These various shortcomings contribute to the ineffectiveness of responses to antisemitism, the FRA believes, calling on national authorities to do more to combat under-reporting.
“It is clear to us, when we correlate the official figures with the experience of Jews as revealed by our periodic surveys, that the data we have, including those we publish today, significantly underestimate the reality. Things are much worse than the data suggest”, lamented FRA Director Michael O'Flaherty.
He was speaking at a conference on combating antisemitism organised by the German EU Council Presidency on Thursday. An event to which the Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for promoting the European way of life, Margarítis Schinás, was also invited.
He assured that the Commission, together with the German Presidency, would intensify its efforts “to ensure the security of Jewish communities, to confront antisemitic conspiracy theories on social networks and to invest in education, awareness and research”. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)