Racism towards black people is growing in Europe, report finds

Racism towards Black people has risen in the European Union, a report published Wednesday has found. It pinpointed Germany, Austria and Finland as countries with the highest rates of discrimination and harassment.

Protestors raise a fist during a march in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany, to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement on June 5, 2020. AFP - YANN SCHREIBER

Carried out by the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), the report draws from the results of polls in 13 countries in which first- and second-generation black immigrants were questioned.

The polls covered a period of six years – between 2016 and 2023 – and came on the back of a previous study on the issue.

The proportion of respondents who said they had felt racially discriminated against over the past year rose by 10 percentage points to 34 percent.

In Austria and Germany that figure was 64 percent, almost twice the previous level of 33 percent.

In Germany the anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland is the third-largest party, while in Austria, the far-right populist Freedom Party, which was first led by a former Nazi SS officer, is expected to win next year’s elections.

Meanwhile the proportion of respondents who said they had felt racially discriminated against over the past five years rose to 45 percent across the 13 countries surveyed. That marks an increase of six points from the previous study.

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'Shocking'

"It is shocking to see no improvement since our last survey," FRA director Michael O'Flaherty said.

"Instead, people of African descent face ever more discrimination just because of the colour of their skin."

Portugal and Sweden had the lowest rates of harassment and, along with Poland, had the lowest racial discrimination rates.

Entitled "Being Black in the EU," the report focuses on 6,752 people born in sub-Saharan Africa or with at least one parent born there living in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.

The report included a series of recommendations for EU member states including properly enforcing anti-discrimination legislation and considering a motivation based on racial bias as an aggravating circumstance when setting penalties for crimes.

Several FRA reports on other ethnic and religious minorities will be produced from the results of the polls, which were conducted by by Ipsos between October 2021 and September 2022.