18/02/2021 (Agence Europe) – The European Commission sent a letter of formal notice on Thursday 18 February to five Member States - Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, Poland and Sweden - which it considers have incorrectly transposed the European Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law (2008/913). In particular, Belgium and Bulgaria are criticised for failing to ensure that racist and xenophobic motivation is taken into account as an aggravating circumstance. Poland, Sweden and Finland are said to have poorly transposed the provisions on hate speech. Poland, for example, restricts the criminalisation of condoning international crimes to cases where these were committed against Polish citizens. States have two months to respond to the Commission, which points out that similar proceedings are still pending against Estonia and Romania. (AC)