Briefing - Research for LIBE Committee: The EU Anti-Racism Strategy 2026-2030 - 01-07-2026
This Briefing critically analyses the new EU Anti-Racism Strategy 2026-2030 (the Strategy) which was launched by the European Commission in January 2026. The Briefing situates the Strategy within the landscape of the existing EU anti-racism infrastructure including the primary and secondary legislation, case law, and other policy initiatives and efforts to combat racism, including the Strategy’s precursor, the EU Anti-Racism Action Plan 2020-2025 (the Plan).
The Briefing shows that the EU’s anti-racism infrastructure, especially the Council Directive 2000/43/EC of 29 June 2000 implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin, commonly known as the ‘Racial Equality Directive’, is robust in principle. Yet, it is underutilised and ultimately ineffective. The low rates of litigation under the Racial Equality Directive at the CJEU are evidence of its underutilisation. The high rates of existing levels of racism across EU Member States, such as recorded in successive FRA reports, evidence its ineffectiveness.
It is against this backdrop that the Strategy, and previously the Plan, were adopted. The Plan was meant to be a ‘step up’ in the EU’s fight against racism. The immediate impetus for the adoption of the Plan came from the global Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd’s death in the US. The Plan sought to address racism comprehensively and at all levels including individual, structural, and the EU’s internal – institutional – level. While the Plan covered much ground, it prioritised coverage and scale over precision and ambition. That is, the Plan lacked a precise normative framework of both racism and anti-racism; and at the same time lacked ambition by failing to identify benchmarks for improvement against which the impact of anti-racism measures could be tested.
The Strategy which succeeds the Plan marks not only a semantic, but a more deliberate and determined, shift in the Commission’s approach to anti-racism. In particular, the Strategy is defined by three normative shifts: the adoption of an economic rationale for anti-racism; the shift in focus towards structural racism; and the centring of participation and partnerships in the fight against racism. These shifts are accompanied by a range of measures reinforcing the need to strengthen monitoring, enforcement, and implementation of law and policy against racism in the EU. Together, both the normative and operational aspects of the Strategy may be considered more ambitious than the Plan.
Yet, the Strategy leaves significant gaps, both normatively and operationally. The success of the Strategy will depend not on how well it is executed but whether it is able to surmount the challenges posed by these gaps. These include: (i) the development of a working definition of structural racism which exceeds belief, ideology, and animus; (ii) the coordination of EU anti-racism measures across all forms of racism, all forms of discrimination, and all other issues facing the EU; (iii) the development of a common approach to intersectionality which defines and operationalises the concept at the same time; (iv) the development of a legal framework for addressing the alarming rise of xenophobia and xenophobic discrimination; (v) the prioritisation of the voices of racially disadvantaged individuals and groups; (vi) the adoption of the Horizontal Equal Treatment Directive; and (vii) the formulation of more ambitious and comprehensive programmatic approach to positive action measures for addressing racial disadvantage.
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP
