Fighting Racism, For Diversity
The Parliament Magazine

December 2004

Claude Moraes MEP was recently European Parliament Rapporteur on the European Commission Communication on Integration, Immigration and Employment. Here he explains why the newly formed Anti-Racism and Diversity Intergroup must tackle some of the most sensitive political issues facing the EU today.

On the day I write this article, my working day as an MEP probably reflects one of the key issues facing most EU countries. In the morning I address one of the biggest gatherings of the Somali community in the UK - in my constituency of London's famous East End. This community faces all the problems and opportunities faced by new immigrant communities across the EU - poverty, social exclusion, and the problems of integration. Yet it is a young and vibrant community with huge potential. Tomorrow, I will travel to The Hague to address a major conference under the Dutch Presidency to move forward their stated aim of prioritising the integration of the new and settled minority Europeans, and next weekend I will travel to Ankara with the young Kurdish MEP Feleknas Uca for a Peace Conference between Turks and Kurds. Both communities live in great numbers across the EU.

All of this activity reflects the changing nature of the EU and what it means to be European. With key race and diversity issues facing the new EU - the situation of the Roma, Islamaphobia post 9/11, and the ability of old European hatreds like anti-Semitism to still rear their ugly head, many MEPs felt it was time to launch an all-party group which would openly address the challenges and solutions of some of the most sensitive issues facing the EU.

It could of course be argued that the key issue of integration and all of the issues mentioned above are already tackled within the EU's structures. The Commission has just published a progressive Green Paper on anti-discrimination, MEPs raise integration issues regularly in committee and the Parliament chamber yet often there is no integrated approach or a feeling that we should look at both the problems and the solutions with a longer view.

One key reason that the Anti-Racism and Diversity Intergroup needed to be formed was to ensure that there was also a representative voice on these issues - of the 732 MEPs only a dozen or so come from an ethnic minority background. There are simply too few such MEPs but what marks out those who have with me formed the group, is that in the words of the European Voice, they are some of the leading voices from immigrant and ethnic communities. The group includes Li??via Jaroka, (EPP, Hungary) the first MEP of Roma origin, Feleknas Uca MEP (GUE/NGL, Germany) the first MEP of Kurdish origin, the veteran anti-racism campaigner and founder of SOS Racisme in France, Harlem Desir MEP, as well as Cem Ozdemir MEP and Emine Bozkurt MEP both of Turkish origin. Others who have become Vice-Presidents are the first Asian woman MEP Nina Gill, the first British Muslim MEP Sajjad Karim, and Belgium's Said El Khadraoui

It is important that an ethnic minority voice in the heart of Europe's Parliament is heard and joined by like-minded MEPs from across the political groups who share our values and determination to face up to these tough issues in the Parliament. These voices include Magda Kosan Kovacs MEP, Sarah Ludford MEP and Jean Lambert MEP.

Armed with a large cross-party membership of MEPs and backed by our secretariat, the European Network against Racism, and the Social Platform of NGOS with whom we launched the Intergroup, we have a great opportunity to examine some key issues. The first meeting will reflect on an issue which became more prominent during the enlargement negotiations, and is now firmly on the minds of MEPs from the new ten countries as well as many of us in the existing fifteen - the situation of the Roma and exactly what the EU-wide approach should be to tackling one of the deepest discriminations against a substantial minority in the new European Union. This will form the subject our first meeting of the Intergroup in December led by the two Hungarian MEPs Livia Jaroka and Magda Kosan Kovacs. The key NGOs and community groups representing Roma communities across the new member states and some from the fifteen will set out the extent of the problem to a wider audience. Illustrating the breadth of the issues that we will deal with, the following meeting will endeavour to pitch exactly what the state of anti-Semitism currently is in the EU. This meeting will take place shortly after the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Perhaps a key task of the Intergroup will be to hold to account what the member states are doing or not doing to tackle discrimination and promote integration. An obvious example is the way that most member states have been reluctant to fully implement the EU's Race Equality Directive, and Employment Directive which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of age, sexual orientation, disability, religion and belief. Both of these ground-breaking EU directives held much hope for a comprehensive approach to tackling discrimination in the EU, but with two of the fifteen member states ignoring the Race Equality Directive and the substantial difficulties for the new member states to transpose this kind of legislation it is important for MEPs to work with the European Commission in moving this agenda forward.

Of course when discussing anti-racism it can sometimes seem that we have only negative problems to solve, yet the Intergroup's name is 'Anti-Racism and Diversity'. Anti-Racism is about what we are against, and respect for Diversity and a two-way process of integration is what we are for. Therefore, we will seek to highlight the positive impact that ethnic minority Europeans have made and continue to make across the European Union making the European Union what it is today - A vibrant continent which will gain from respecting its minorities.

back to top