Antisemitism
summary overview
of the situation in the
European Union 2001-2009
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EU Agency for Fundamental Rights
2000 EU Charter of Fundamental Rights
2007 EU Agency for Fundamental Rights
Objective: to provide EU and MSs with evidence
based advice on fundamental rights, when they
implement EU law
 Multi-annual framework set by Council
Geographical scope: EU (& accession countries)
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National
Liaison
Officers
Fundamental
Rights
Platform
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Data collection: methodology
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Policy relevant research
International definitions and standards (EU - CoE - UN)
Policy relevant research
Interdisciplinary ‘socio – legal’ approach
EU wide data collection network FRANET
 Secondary data: Collection and comparative analysis
 Primary research: Quantitative and qualitative fieldwork
 Developing rights based indicators
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Antisemitism in the EU
 7th update situation report on antisemitism in the EU
 2001 - 2009 official and non-official statistics
+ Incidents identified by NGOs and media reports
 Statistical data (official and/or non-official) available for
Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France,
Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, UK
 Limited information on incidents in Bulgaria, Cyprus,
Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, and Spain
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Data collection deficiencies
 Under-reporting: official systems of data collection that
are based on police records and criminal justice data do
not always disaggregate registered antisemitic acts;
many not reported to official bodies
 Over-reporting: unofficial systems of data collection
may record the same incident under different categories
– OSCE  48 MSs, among them 19 EU MSs, did not
submit data to the last OSCE hate crime report
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 2 years project financed by the EC to improve
monitoring and recording of hate crimes and incidents
throughout the European Union
 http://www.ceji.org/facingfacts/
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Official data on anti-Semitic incidents
Countries with the best data collection systems risk
being portrayed as those with the worst problem
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We are concerned about…
 The continuing paucity of criminal justice data
 Far right and left rhetoric linking the economic crisis
increasingly to “banks and the rich”
 Persisting traditional antisemitic stereotypes with
reference to the Middle East conflict
 The paucity of criminal justice data on the identities
and motivation of perpetrators of antisemitic acts
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Initiating major primary research
Major survey in BE, FR, DE, GR, HU, LV, RO, SE and UK:
investigating experiences and views of Jewish women and
men 16+ (sample 350 – 1,000 per MS) through standardised
online (RDS + open) questionnaire on issues, such as:
– Safety and security
– Hate crime and hate speech
– Discrimination and harassment
– Reasons for not reporting incidents
– Awareness of rights and remedies
– Perceptions of antisemitism in society
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Policy relevant research
 €500,000 survey offers unique opportunity to gather credible
data on Jewish experiences of, attitudes towards, and
responses to contemporary antisemitism
 Gathering high quality data across the EU to inform policy
makers about how to measure and tackle antisemitism
 Close consultation with MSs, e.g. FR, SE, HU, DE and UK
+ key NGOs, e.g. Institute for Jewish Policy Research,
European Jewish Congress, Anne Frank House, CST,
European Shoah Legacy Institute, World Jewish Congress,
World Jewish Diplomatic Corps, Wiesenthal Centre, CEJI, etc.
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Thank you for your attention
For more information or publications
www.fra.europa.eu
or contact us at
information@fra.europa.eu
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