Equality

Equality, non-discrimination and racism

Equality is a core value of the EU. You have the right to fair treatment regardless of who you are, what you believe, or how you chose to live.

We carry out research and share expertise to help fight discrimination, inequality and racism in all its forms.

Highlights

Products
18
September
2013
This paper provides an analysis of data collected through FRA’s Roma Survey broken down by gender and covering the core areas of employment, education, housing and health, as well as any other gender‐sensitive policy areas. The paper is the result of a request made by the President of the European Parliament to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) on 27 June 2013.
26
July
2013
This report analyses the current international and European legal standards and compares EU Member States’ laws in the area of legal capacity. Evidence from fieldwork research supports the legal analysis, providing eloquent testimony to the obstacles many persons with disabilities face in securing equal enjoyment of their fundamental rights.
8
November
2010
This report provides the first results from a legal study carried out by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in the context of its project on the "Fundamental rights of persons with intellectual disabilities and persons with mental health problems".
26
January
2010
In 2009, the FRA conducted the first EU-wide study of the role that European memorial sites, museums and exhibitions play with respect to educating young Europeans about the Holocaust and human rights. The findings of the study were presented at a Conference in Auschwitz on the 27 January bringing together Education Ministers from across Europe.
1
November
2010
The development of indicators for the protection, respect and promotion of the rights of the child in the European Union by the FRA aims at assessing the impact of Union law and policies that have been adopted so far, identifying their achievements and revealing their gaps on EU provisions for children.

21
March
2011
The Handbook on European non-discrimination law is jointly produced by the European Court of Human Rights and the FRA. It is a comprehensive guide to non-discrimination law and relevant key concepts.
18
June
2013
This year’s summary of the FRA Annual report – Highlights 2012 – puts the spotlight on key legal and policy developments in the field of fundamental rights in 2012.
18
June
2013
Against a backdrop of rising unemployment and increased deprivation, this FRA Annual report closely examines the situation of those, such as children, who are vulnerable to budget cuts, impacting important fields such as education, healthcare and social services. It looks at the discrimination that Roma continue to face and the mainstreaming of elements of extremist ideology in political and public discourse. It considers the impact the crises have had on the basic principle of the rule of law, as well as stepped up EU Member State efforts to ensure trust in justice systems.
17
May
2013
In light of a lack of comparable data on the respect, protection and fulfilment of the fundamental rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) launched in 2012 its European Union (EU) online survey of LGBT persons’ experiences of discrimination, violence and harassment.
This major online survey, carried out in 2012, collected information from more than 93,000 LGBT people in the EU on their experiences of discrimination, violence, verbal abuse or hate speech on the grounds of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The data explorer also allows the filtering of responses by age, sexual orientation and country of residence.
8
May
2013
Many of us enjoy and take pride in supporting sports clubs and teams. Nevertheless, racism, xenophobia and antisemitism continue to blight sport. These phenomena persist in many sports, but tend to be most visible in football due to its popularity, its coverage and the number of people engaged in the sport at all levels.
11
March
2013
Certain people are seen as particularly vulnerable to unequal treatment, because they share a combination of characteristics that may trigger discrimination. A Roma woman sterilised without her informed consent, for example, has suffered discrimination not just because of her sex, as all women do not face this treatment, nor just because she is Roma, as Roma men may not face this treatment. The discriminatory treatment is based specifically on the intersection of her sex and ethnic origin.
11
March
2013
The FRA report 'Inequalities and multiple discrimination in access to and quality of healthcare' examines experiences of unequal treatment on more than one ground in healthcare, providing evidence of discrimination or unfair treatment.
10
March
2013
This book will tell you about FRA’s work on how people might be treated differently in healthcare and on multiple discrimination in healthcare.
7
March
2013
This brief provides a short compilation of FRA findings on the issue of combating hate crime in the EU.
June
2012
This summary in easy read format provides information about FRA’s work on the right to live independently.
27
November
2012
Discrimination and intolerance persist in the European Union (EU) despite the best efforts of Member States to root them out, FRA research shows. Verbal abuse, physical attacks and murders motivated by prejudice target EU society in all its diversity, from visible minorities to those with disabilities. This FRA report is designed to help the EU and its Member States to tackle these fundamental rights violations both by making them more visible and bringing perpetrators to account.
27
November
2012
This EU-MIDIS Data in focus report 6 presents data on respondents’ experiences of victimisation across five crime types: theft of or from a vehicle; burglary or attempted burglary; theft of personal property not involving force or threat (personal theft); assault or threat; and serious harassment. The European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey (EU-MIDIS) is the first EU-wide survey to ask 23,500 individuals with an ethnic and minority background about their experiences of discrimination and criminal victimisation in everyday life.
European Day of Persons with Disabilities is a time to remind ourselves of the urgent need to live up to our commitments to achieve equality for all. This is especially pressing since the European Disability Strategy will end in 2020.
Today marks 30 years of the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child – a landmark human rights treaty. It changed how adults view and treat children. But despite considerable progress in Europe, basic challenges, such as child poverty, remain.
Last year FRA published its report on the experiences of almost 6,000 people of African descent in 12 EU Member States.
Without adequate data, government and civil society cannot formulate effective responses to antisemitism that continues to haunt Europe. FRA’s latest annual overview of antisemitism data 2008-2018 identifies large gaps in recording antisemitic incidents in a way that allows to collect adequate official data across the EU.
The Irish police force, the Garda Síochána, invited FRA to give a presentation on the experiences of discrimination, harassment and violence of Muslims and people of African descent across the EU.
The Austrian Chamber of Labour organised a workshop to discuss the results of a recent study on discrimination with experts from European institutions, trade unions, Equality bodies and civil society.
On 26 September, FRA took part in a panel discussion on memory, stereotypes and preventing antisemitism following an invitation from the Office of the Antismitism Coordinator of North Rhine Westphalia.
FRA took part in the high-level conference in Paris from 26 to 27 September to mark the 25th Anniversary of the Council of Europe’s European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI).
Migrant women face multiple challenges fully integrating into European society. This is often due to inequalities resulting from the combined effect of their gender, migrant status and ethnic background, as FRA’s latest report testifies. It underlines the need for targeted, gender-sensitive measures to compensate for such inequalities.
Many young Jewish Europeans face antisemitic harassment in Europe, but are also very resilient as they clearly express their Jewish identity, finds a report published today by the European Commission and FRA. Rising hate speech and intolerance towards them shows the urgent need for continued concerted efforts to adequately address society’s longstanding and persistent hostility towards Jews.
The dataset from FRA’s second antisemitism survey is now available for further use by researchers. The dataset contains a wealth of information from over 16,000 Jews in 12 EU Member States about their perceptions and experiences of antisemitism.
FRA took part a roundtable discussion on combatting anti-Muslim hatred and discrimination and a workshop on synergies and good practices on tackling anti-Muslim racism and discrimination.
On 20 June in Brussels, FRA took part in the first meeting of the European Commission working group on the implementation of the Council Declaration on the fight against antisemitism.
Many people across the EU risk being left behind, as growing intolerance and attacks on people’s fundamental rights continue to erode the considerable progress achieved to date, finds FRA’s Fundamental Rights Report 2019.
The summary outlining the main findings of FRA’s second survey on Jewish people’s experiences of hate crime, discrimination and antisemitism in the EU – the biggest survey of Jewish people ever conducted worldwide - are now available online in 12 languages: Croatian, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian Spanish and Swedish.
Across Europe, recent elections and referendums have made one thing very clear: voting matters. How we vote – and whether we vote at all – can change our societies for generations.
Karoline Edtstadler, State Secretary at the Austrian Ministry of the Interior, and Ariel Muzicant, Vice-President of the European Jewish Congress, will speak at an event in Vienna on 30 April which addresses antisemitism in Austria.
Too many people with an ethnic or migrant background are still being held back in the job market. This is despite laws against racial discrimination and for equal opportunities in employment that have been in place for decades, the heads of three European human rights institutions said in a joint statement on today’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
Across the EU, many Member States are improving their equality data to help policymakers combat discrimination and challenge prejudices. To inspire others, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights has just published an online compendium of nearly 40 practices from 15 countries on the collection and use of equality data.
The Romanian Presidency of the EU Council held a conference on the fight against antisemitism: a common approach to better protect Jewish communities in Europe – from policy to action.