By IPS Correspondents
BRUSSELS, Apr 13 2005 (IPS)

The under-recording of racist incidents in most European Union member states is hampering efforts to crack down on racist violence, according to a new report from the Union’s racism watchdog.

The report ‘Racist Violence in 15 EU Member States released by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) Wednesday warns that official data collection on racist violence in 15 of the bloc’s ‘old’ member states is "non-existent or ineffectual" and needs further development.

The EUMC, a Vienna-based agency of the European Union (EU), says only six member states – Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Britain and Sweden – keep "a comprehensive system that adequately reveals the extent and nature of racist violence in their society." Three member states – Greece, Italy and Portugal – have "no publicly available" official criminal justice data on racist crime and violence.

The group adds that in most EU countries attacks on ethnic or religious minorities are not specifically recorded as "racially motivated offences." As a result, such attacks are not published through official crime statistics.

The EUMC warns that such a lack of data collection could "seriously hamper" efforts to respond to violent racism within the bloc, and insists that effective data collection is paramount to combating racist violence.

"The EU needs to know how widespread the problem of racist or xenophobic violence is. Otherwise it cannot effectively protect its cultural, religious and ethnic minorities against the violation of their fundamental rights, including their most basic rights to human dignity, life and integrity of the person," Beate Winkler, director of the EUMC said in a statement Wednesday. "Not to record such incidents means that we underestimate the problem and that its victims remain invisible."

"As a result, decision-makers will find it difficult to develop adequate policy and practical responses to the problem. We need to know more about the perpetrators of racist crime and adopt effective legislation that will ensure they are punished with proportionate and dissuasive penalties," Winkler added.

The group warns that comparing data between countries is also misleading as the effectiveness of official data collection systems – where they exist at all – differs greatly between EU member states.

This depends on the country’s legislation, whether criminal justice agencies have been trained to respond to incidents of racist violence, and the existence of and accessibility to data on racist crime.

"Such differences lead to a distorted picture when comparing the raw figures of racist incidents between individual member states," the report says. "Countries with the best data collection systems, broad definitions of racist acts and the most systematically applied legislation will have the most complete figures. The number of incidents recorded may ironically reflect the effectiveness of their definition of racist violence and data collection rather than any notion of racism being more of a particular problem for that state."

As a result the EUMC says it is difficult to assess whether racist violence is actually increasing or decreasing within the bloc.

"Given the absence of official data in many member states, the actual extent of racist violence cannot be firmly assessed. Unofficial data collection mechanisms – run by NGOs and academic institutions – generally do not have the resources to provide comprehensive information on racist violence," EUMC spokesman Frederick Banson, told IPS Wednesday.

"They can however provide some indication of whether there is a problem with racist crime in a country. In those countries that do not adequately record racist incidents, the EUMC’s National Focal Points have indicated to the EUMC that the problem is being underestimated," he added.

The EUMC says good data collection is essential for protecting victims of racist violence and punishing the perpetrators of such actions, and is urging those EU member states which do not have effective methods for recording racist violence to develop responses to target the problem.

"This could be done by encouraging victims of racist violence to report incidents, developing sensitive, effective and visible policing responses to respond to fear, and using criminal intelligence systems and procedures to build up an effective database about perpetrators," the report says.

The group also says the EU should enforce regulations to ensure that racism is recorded properly in its member states.

"A framework decision sends an unambiguous signal to the perpetrators that there will be no hiding place within the EU for their activities and to the victims that the EU as a whole is acting to combat this evil," the report says.

In November 2001, the European Commission, the EU executive, presented proposals to fight racism and xenophobia more efficiently at the EU level, but discussion on the proposals between member states was suspended until February 2005 when the Luxembourg presidency of the EU decided to reconsider the proposals..

The EUMC says the EU and its member states must now work to adopt the proposals during the Luxembourg presidency of the bloc which ends in June.

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