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
21
May
2014
The opportunity to be involved in political life, whether by standing for elected office, joining a political party, or following political news stories in the media, is at the heart of what it means to live in a democratic society. The report analyses data on the situation of political participation of persons with disabilities collected from across the 28 European Union (EU) Member States by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and the European Commission-funded Academic Network of European Disability Experts (ANED).
5
March
2014
This factsheet presents some examples of survey findings, which are placed alongside general considerations as possible ‘ways forward’ for responding to violence against women.
5
March
2014
This FRA survey is the first of its kind on violence against women across the 28 Member States of the European Union (EU). It is based on interviews with 42,000 women across the EU, who were asked about their experiences of physical, sexual and psychological violence, including incidents of intimate partner violence (‘domestic violence’).
FRA helps EU institutions and countries in the European Union (EU), so-called EU Member States, to ensure that the rights of all people including children are respected. It collects information about rights across the EU and gives advice on how to improve the conditions of vulnerable people such as migrants, asylum seekers, victims of violence, racism and hate crime.
6
January
2014
This Technical report describes how the FRA Roma Pilot survey was carried out and the fieldwork outcomes in 11 EU Member States.
20
December
2013
This thematic situation report examines the effectiveness of responses by public authorities, civil society organisations and others to counter racism, discrimination, intolerance and extremism in Greece and Hungary. The report goes on to make proposals for fighting racist crime, increasing trust in the police, and combating extremism throughout the EU.
3
December
2013
Police officers who ensure that people are able to exercise their fundamental rights and freedoms earn the respect and trust of the public. With this in mind, this manual sets out to foster such human rights-based police work by integrating human rights training into the heart of police training, in line with the European Union’s goals in the field of justice and home affairs.
8
November
2013
This FRA survey is the first-ever to collect comparable data on Jewish people’s experiences and perceptions of antisemitism, hate-motivated crime and discrimination across a number of EU Member States, specifically in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Its findings reveal a worrying level of discrimination, particularly in employment and education, a widespread fear of victimisation and heightening concern about antisemitism online.
8
November
2013
Jewish people across the European Union (EU) continue to face insults, discrimination, harassment and even physical violence which, despite concerted efforts by both the EU and its Member States, show no signs of fading into the past. Although many important rights are guaranteed legally, widespread and long-standing prejudice continues to hinder Jewish people’s chances to enjoy these rights in reality.
6
November
2013
The FRA survey is the first-ever to collect comparable data on Jewish people’s experiences and perceptions of antisemitism, hate-motivated crime and discrimination across a number of EU Member States, specifically in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. This technical report gives an overview of the survey methodology, sample and the questionnaire.
7
November
2013
Antisemitism can be expressed in the form of verbal and physical attacks, threats, harassment, property damage, graffiti or other forms of text, including hate speech on the internet. The present report – the ninth update of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) overview of Manifestations of antisemitism in the EU – relates to manifestations of antisemitism as they are recorded by official and unofficial sources in the 28 European Union (EU) Member States.
This 2012 survey provides comparable data from eight countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden and the UK) on Jewish people’s experiences and perceptions of discrimination, hate-motivated crime and antisemitism. The data explorer also allows the filtering of responses by age, gender and strength of Jewish identity of respondents.
22
October
2013
The Opinion assesses the impact of the Framework Decision on the rights of the victims of crimes motivated by hatred and prejudice, including racism and xenophobia.
1
October
2013
Drawing on evidence gathered in its surveys and reports, FRA submits a set of opinions aimed at improving the protection against discrimination. These could be taken into account in the implementation and the eventual reform of the EU legal framework on the protection against discrimination.
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.
FRA
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.

During the second meeting of the European Commission’s antisemitism working group, Member States exchanged best practices and shared experiences of their efforts to prevent, address and respond to antisemitism through education.
FRA joined the European Parliament Working Group on Antisemitism, the European Jewish Congress and B'nai B'rith International for a mobilising event on 10 December in Brussels.
The German Federal Police held their autumn conference in Wiesbaden from 27 to 28 November.
Summaries of the findings from the biggest survey of discrimination and hate crime against Jews ever conducted worldwide are now available in Bulgarian, Czech, Estonian, Greek, Hebrew, Latvian, Maltese, Slovak, Slovenian and Portuguese.
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.