In
October of 1999 politicians around the European Union (EU) were stunned by the
success of Jörg Haider’s far right Freedom Party. When Haider’s party became
part of the Austrian government in early 2000, the other EU countries responded
with diplomatic sanctions and within a few months would pass the Racial
Equality Directive (RED), a measure which would require all 15 member states
(and future members) to pass antidiscrimination policy into national law. Ten
years later, despite some initial success with the development of national
level equality bodies, many EU governments were slashing funding and moving
once-independent entities into larger human rights bodies, thereby diluting
their influence. The institutions created by the RED were under fire partially
because of the ongoing fiscal crisis, but also due to political pressure. The
RED and consequent Equal employment and Gender equality directives were a set
of policies which developed along with European integration in the 1990s, but
ran into the integration slowdown after enlargement in the mid-2000s, a fiscal
crisis, and a lack of prioritization by mostly conservative governments.
In
our book, Legislating Equality: The
Politics of Antidiscrimination Policy in Europe, we examine the development
and implementation of the RED in Europe. Two factors played an important role for
the development of antidiscrimination policy in the EU. The first is racist
anti-immigrant sentiment, and the second is Left vs. Right politics, i.e. the
rise of the radical right as a catalyst for the passage of legislation and Left
support for antidiscrimination policy. However, these policy developments were
also dependent upon the process of Europeanization – as the European Union
developed, political opportunities developed which allowed the issue of racism and
antidiscrimination policy to move forward as a policy issue.
The
RED’s most visible accomplishment was the creation of national equality bodies
tasked with combating discrimination. The equality bodies have three principal
goals: to assist and support victims to pursue complaints, to conduct
independent surveys, and to publish independent reports on discrimination. The
European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) delineated the
following competencies as central to a body’s success:
- Providing aid and assistance to victims,
including legal aid, and (where appropriate) to ensure victims have
recourse to the courts or other judicial authorities.
- Monitoring the content and impact of
legislation intended to combat racial discrimination, and recommending,
where necessary, improvements to this legislation.
- Advising policymakers on how to improve
regulations and practices.
- Hearing complaints concerning specific cases of
discrimination and seeking resolutions either through mediation or through
binding and enforceable decisions.
- Sharing information with other national and
European institutions tasked with promoting equality.
- Issuing advice on best practices of
anti-discriminatory practice.
- Promoting public awareness of discrimination
and disseminating pertinent information (European Commission against
Racism and Intolerance, 1997).
By
2008 most countries in the EU, including those that had recently joined, had
passed laws implementing the EU’s equality directives. In the first few years
after the transposition of the Equal Treatment Directives there was growth in
both the number and staffing of the equality bodies and in some cases success
in “naming and shaming” corporations and other entities for discrimination. The
equality bodies were also somewhat successful in bringing awareness to the
issues around discrimination. However, by the ten year anniversary of the
passage of the RED in 2010 it was clear that both politics and the European
fiscal crisis were having a negative impact on the equality bodies.
By
2010, antidiscrimination policy enforcement was put on the backburner in most
countries. Britain’s Labour government
decided to merge the long-standing Commission for Race Equality into the
Equality and Human Rights Commission, potentially blunting its impact in the
area of racial discrimination. In France, the Haute Autorité de Lutte contre les Discriminations et pour L’Egalité (HALDE)
became an important contact point for those who felt discrimination. However,
in 2011, the French Assembly passed a law that folded the HALDE into a larger
human rights entity, the Defenseur des
Droits. Both staff from the HALDE and academic commentators expected this
change to reduce the visibility, effectiveness and power of the HALDE,
particularly in the area of racial discrimination.
The
global economic downturn has been perceived to be a “trigger” for increased
intolerance and discrimination against migrants and members of minority groups,
exacerbated by budget cuts and waning political will to combat it. However,
this is likely a temporary spike that does not yet point to an increase in
institutional discrimination. This does point to a need for governments to act
quickly: the right measures need to be put in place during countries’ recovery
period from the crisis to stave off a worsening of the situation of migrants
and minorities—groups already at risk.
In
light of these challenges, the European Union’s antidiscrimination priority for
the next decade should not be to create more legislation or more institutions;
instead, the EU needs to strengthen the ones it already has. European
governments, EU institutions, and civil society partners will continue to
evaluate what is working and what is not, and reinforce the existing
structures.
