Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

Race against time

Khaled Diab 22nd March 2021

With the resurgence of racism and discrimination across Europe, combating it requires urgent action, not just noble words.

Racism,xenophobia,Roma
Khaled Diab

The issue of racism is climbing up the agenda of the European Union. Last Friday, International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the EU organised its first European Anti-Racism Summit.

‘Racism is around us in our societies. It doesn’t always make the headlines but it is there,’ said the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, in her opening remarks. ‘I know we can be better than this. Europe must be better than this.’

The summit built on the EU’s Anti-Racism Action Plan for 2020-25, which seeks to spearhead action that brings together key stakeholders in the fight against racism and to marshal some of the EU’s budget to combat this scourge. The commission also pledges to collect better data on racism and to reassess the EU legal framework, proposing new legislation as necessary.

Most marginalised

Roma individuals comprise Europe’s largest minority and also its most marginalised. Ðorđe Jovanović, president of the European Roma Rights Centre, told the summit of the daily and profound discrimination they faced across Europe. Jovanović not only criticised EU anti-racism policies as not going far enough—he also questioned why these policies were formulated by white policy-makers without sufficient consultation of Roma communities. ‘Roma civil activists are only put in the box of victims,’ he said. ‘I’m tired of providing only testimonies.’


Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content. We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Sign up here

This lack of engagement manifests itself in how the EU approaches police profiling, for example. ‘Profiling is commonly, and legitimately, used by law enforcement officers to prevent, investigate and prosecute criminal offences,’ says the action plan. ‘However, profiling that results in discrimination on the basis of special categories of personal data, such as data revealing racial or ethnic origin, is illegal.’

As someone who has endured ‘random checks’ in countless places around the world, I see the inherent contradiction in describing profiling as ‘legitimate’ while saying that if this results in discrimination it is ‘illegal’. ‘Police misconduct is one of the most common forms of discrimination facing the Roma,’ Jovanović emphasised. ‘It is often the only face of the state that our people see.’

One particularly toxic form of discrimination facing Roma communities, and to varying extents other poor minorities, is environmental racism. Last year, the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) released a report on how discrimination against Europe’s Roma manifests itself physically—quite literally, by pushing them to the toxic margins of society. Not only are Roma communities too often forced to live in polluted ghettoes. They are also systematically excluded or marginalised from basic environmental services, such as water supply and waste management, as well as healthcare and education.

The consequences of environmental racism have been lethally underscored by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has affected Roma communities disproportionately, as with other marginalised minorities in Europe and elsewhere in the world. Given its harmful and poisonous impact, the EU needs to recognise environmental racism explicitly and put in place policies to combat it.

Fanning the flames

While second and third-generation immigrants, as well as members of indigenous minorities such as Jews, must confront the ills of racism and discrimination, newcomers who arrive as undocumented migrants and refugees have it even tougher, because they do not enjoy the benefits of citizenship or the legal protection of an official status. Yet public hostility towards migrants and refugees is mounting in Europe, with right-wing and some mainstream leaders, claiming to represent the majority, fanning the flames of xenophobia.

A report on building a wellbeing economy which the EEB will be releasing next month, in the context of the Climate of Change project, explores ways of combating racism and anti-migrant sentiment through robust policies and a change in the negative narrative on migration. EU action in this regard is welcome and necessary—but problems in its member states are bound to percolate and resonate in Brussels.

Not only is there still a long way to go before we achieve true equality—the ‘whitelash’ against growing empowerment has intensified. Almost wherever one turns, from Brexit Britain to nativist Hungary, racist politicians and policies enjoy significant and in many cases burgeoning support.

Even centrist politicians have not been above pandering to these bigoted tendencies. The most prominent recent instance has been in France. Despite the fanfare surrounding Emmanuel Macron’s defeat of the far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, in the 2017 election, the president and his government have embraced a narrative on Islam and Muslims that parrots her Rassemblement National.


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

Dark side

France has also not been immune to the jingoism which has conquered Britain in recent years. A small example of this is how 2021 has become the Year of Napoleon, to mark the 200th anniversary of Bonaparte’s death. Napoleon undoubtedly exercised a massive impact on the modern world—from the grand, such as the Napoleonic code, to the mundane, such as driving on the right side of the road.

There is however a dark and murderous side to the self-declared emperor of France, largely missing from public discourse. Napoleon reintroduced slavery in France’s colonies, a few years after the revolution had abolished it. ‘I find it particularly galling to see that France plans to celebrate the man who restored slavery to the French Caribbean, an architect of modern genocide, whose troops created gas chambers to kill my ancestors,’ wrote Marlene Daut, a professor of American and African diaspora studies at the University of Virginia.

Of course, Napoleon is not the only problematic historical figure in Europe. Across the channel, Britain’s World War II hero Winston Churchill, once voted ‘greatest Briton of all-time’, sparked the Bengal famine which killed three million during the war, among many other atrocities.

That does not mean we should excise such men from our collective consciousness as European. It means we need to build a more critical and honest understanding of these leaders—not raise them on a pedestal as infallible heroes.

White Brussels

Just as national politics and government are largely dominated by white people, the same applies to the EU. Although Brussels is one of the most diverse cities in Europe and the world, that is not reflected in the institutions, where members of minorities are few and far between.

The commission and other institutions have pledged to lead by example to promote diversity. Equinox, a new racial-justice initiative, has come out with a blueprint on how the EU can set in motion lasting change.

This also applies, to a lesser or greater degree, to the civil society engaging with the institutions. Even the European environmental movement is predominantly white and a recent petition demands that green NGOs take more action to promote diversity and become actively anti-racist.

The EEB, for one, recognises this challenge. In addition to the research and campaigning on environmental racism and justice it carries out externally, it is endeavouring to get its own house in order, working to create greater awareness of the issues and promote diversity within the organisation.

Biases and structures

My own career has provided me with insights into the unconscious biases and structural issues standing in the way of greater diversity. Most of the jobs I have done have made me feel, to paraphrase Michael Kiwanuka, a little like a brown man in a white world. When I started off in journalism over two decades ago, the English-language media landscape was almost exclusively white, even when it came to those covering the middle east.

With few role models to emulate and no clear path for entry, the task ahead seemed daunting and required a confidence in my abilities not necessarily shared by the world I sought to enter.

The rejections did take their toll. But refusing to accept the knock-backs, I kept going until I broke in and then kept pushing the limits as far as I could. Eventually, I got my byline into some of the world’s leading publications.

Along the way, key allies and mentors played a pivotal role in giving me the chance to prove myself or taking a gamble on me. When all is said and done, I have been rather fortunate. But the Europe I want to live in is one in which members of minorities succeed, not in spite of the system but because of it—one in which they have an equal chance of making their dreams come true.

carbon markets,emissions trading,carbon credits,carbon offsetting,COP26,article 6
Khaled Diab

Khaled Diab is a veteran journalist and author. He writes here in his capacity as communications director at Carbon Market Watch.

You are here: Home / Politics / Race against time

Most Popular Posts

European civil war,iron curtain,NATO,Ukraine,Gorbachev The new European civil warGuido Montani
Visentini,ITUC,Qatar,Fight Impunity,50,000 Visentini, ‘Fight Impunity’, the ITUC and QatarFrank Hoffer
Russian soldiers' mothers,war,Ukraine The Ukraine war and Russian soldiers’ mothersJennifer Mathers and Natasha Danilova
IGU,documents,International Gas Union,lobby,lobbying,sustainable finance taxonomy,green gas,EU,COP ‘Gaslighting’ Europe on fossil fuelsFaye Holder
Schengen,Fortress Europe,Romania,Bulgaria Romania and Bulgaria stuck in EU’s second tierMagdalena Ulceluse

Most Recent Posts

EU social agenda,social investment,social protection EU social agenda beyond 2024—no time to wasteFrank Vandenbroucke
pension reform,Germany,Lindner Pension reform in Germany—a market solution?Fabian Mushövel and Nicholas Barr
European civil war,iron curtain,NATO,Ukraine,Gorbachev The new European civil warGuido Montani
artists,cultural workers Europe’s stars must shine for artists and creativesIsabelle Van de Gejuchte
transition,deindustrialisation,degradation,environment Europe’s industry and the ecological transitionCharlotte Bez and Lorenzo Feltrin

Other Social Europe Publications

front cover scaled Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis
sere12 1 RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound webinar: Making telework work for everyone

Since 2020 more European workers and managers have enjoyed greater flexibility and autonomy in work and are reporting their preference for hybrid working. Also driven by technological developments and structural changes in employment, organisations are now integrating telework more permanently into their workplace.

To reflect on these shifts, on 6 December Eurofound researchers Oscar Vargas and John Hurley explored the challenges and opportunities of the surge in telework, as well as the overall growth of telework and teleworkable jobs in the EU and what this means for workers, managers, companies and policymakers.


WATCH THE WEBINAR HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Discover the new FEPS Progressive Yearbook and what 2023 has in store for us!

The Progressive Yearbook focuses on transversal European issues that have left a mark on 2022, delivering insightful future-oriented analysis for the new year. It counts on renowned authors' contributions, including academics, politicians and analysts. This fourth edition is published in a time of war and, therefore, it mostly looks at the conflict itself, the actors involved and the implications for Europe.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ILO advertisement

Global Wage Report 2022-23: The impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power

The International Labour Organization's Global Wage Report is a key reference on wages and wage inequality for the academic community and policy-makers around the world.

This eighth edition of the report, The Impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power, examines the evolution of real wages, giving a unique picture of wage trends globally and by region. The report includes evidence on how wages have evolved through the COVID-19 crisis as well as how the current inflationary context is biting into real wage growth in most regions of the world. The report shows that for the first time in the 21st century real wage growth has fallen to negative values while, at the same time, the gap between real productivity growth and real wage growth continues to widen.

The report analysis the evolution of the real total wage bill from 2019 to 2022 to show how its different components—employment, nominal wages and inflation—have changed during the COVID-19 crisis and, more recently, during the cost-of-living crisis. The decomposition of the total wage bill, and its evolution, is shown for all wage employees and distinguishes between women and men. The report also looks at changes in wage inequality and the gender pay gap to reveal how COVID-19 may have contributed to increasing income inequality in different regions of the world. Together, the empirical evidence in the report becomes the backbone of a policy discussion that could play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the different ongoing crises.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

Social policy in the European Union: state of play 2022

Since 2000, the annual Bilan social volume has been analysing the state of play of social policy in the European Union during the preceding year, the better to forecast developments in the new one. Co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), the new edition is no exception. In the context of multiple crises, the authors find that social policies gained in ambition in 2022. At the same time, the new EU economic framework, expected for 2023, should be made compatible with achieving the EU’s social and ‘green’ objectives. Finally, they raise the question whether the EU Social Imbalances Procedure and Open Strategic Autonomy paradigm could provide windows of opportunity to sustain the EU’s social ambition in the long run.


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube