The EU needs to face its institutional racism problem

If the EU is to really tackle racism, it needs to address structural racism in all its forms, across all member states.

The European Union’s anti-racism summit, which took place on March 19, was a critical opportunity for the EU to meet the demands of last year’s global protests against police brutality and structural racism. Unfortunately, EU leaders did not meet expectations. Although racial justice movements have made clear their demands for an end to police brutality and institutional racism, during the summit, EU leaders focused overwhelmingly on the individual dimensions of racism, such as hate speech. There was little talk of how EU states and institutions themselves reinforce racism with their own policies, how racialised people are dying at the hands of police or how anti-racism civil society organisations are facing unprecedented attacks.