On Tuesday 20 January, the European Commission published its new ‘EU strategy against racism’ (2026-2030). As the Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management, Hadja Lahbib, pointed out during her presentation, this strategy is emerging at a time of great political and social tension.
While the ‘EU Action Plan against Racism’ (2020-2025) (see EUROPE 12563/2) focused on developing a common European response to racism, in particular by putting racism on the EU’s political agenda, building on enhanced dialogue with civil society and encouraging the adoption of national plans, the new strategy is more political and potentially more binding.
In fact, the Commission approaches the issue of racism not only as a sum of individual discriminations, but also as a systemic phenomenon rooted in a set of social, economic and institutional structures.
A structural phenomenon. The first part of the document is devoted to structural racism, i.e. the combination of difficulties and disadvantages that impede access to employment, housing, education, health and justice for certain groups.
For the first time, the Commission is proposing to work with the Member States to develop a common working definition of ‘structural racism’ in order to improve the coherence of public policies and their evaluation.
Application of the law. This direction is reflected in Chapter II of the strategy, which deals with the application of the law against discrimination and the fight against racial hatred.
Despite an existing European legal framework, the Commission notes that discrimination, hate speech and racist violence remain largely under-reported and insufficiently punished.
For 2026-2030, both the adoption of new legislation and the enforcement of existing legislation are priorities.
A report on the application of the Racial Equality Directive is expected in 2026. In particular, it will analyse the effectiveness of national sanctions regimes and, in a new development, the application of anti-discrimination law to cases of algorithmic discrimination.
Preventing the biases conveyed by artificial intelligence. So, while the use of artificial intelligence is gaining ground in administrative, economic and social decision-making, the Commission wishes to prevent the racial bias that these systems incorporate into the implementation of the AI Act.
The 2008 Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia (https://aeur.eu/f/kbr ), which requires Member States to criminalise racist hate speech and hate crimes, will also have to be fully transposed.
In view of the lack of progress, the Commission does not rule out a legislative initiative to harmonise the definitions of online hate crimes and remedy the disparities in national responses.
Protection of victims. The revision of the directive on victims’ rights should make it easier to report incidents, improve the assessment of needs and strengthen support for people targeted by racist violence. The Commission is also encouraging Member States to improve training for law enforcement officers and to combat discriminatory profiling practices.
Use of data. Finally, the strategy calls for greater emphasis to be placed on the production of comparable and disaggregated data, which is considered a prerequisite for evidence-based anti-racism policies.
Strategy: https://aeur.eu/f/kbl (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)