Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers

Vĕra JourováCommissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality

Factsheet | September 2015

Eurobarometer on Discrimination 2015:Social acceptance and discrimination on the grounds of religion and ethnicity

The European Commission is fully committed to combatting discrimination on the grounds of religion or beliefs and ethnicity. Improving social acceptance, fighting prejudice and promoting the benefits of diversity in an increasingly mixed society are key objectives of the EU.

The Eurobarometer survey was conducted in June 2015 amongst 28,000 EU citizens. The results of this survey give a better understanding of citizens’ views and perceptions on discrimination based on religion or ethnicity.

Both ethnic and religious discrimination are perceived to be very widespread. The increase in antisemitic and anti-Muslim hate crime is a worrying trend. Muslims and Roma are the two groups subjected to most prejudice, although there are large differences between Member States in terms of social accept-ance of different ethnic and religious groups. Nevertheless, EU citizens are in favour of measures and policies to raise the level of protection for groups at risk of discrimination.

1. Perceptions of religious and ethnic discrimination in the EU

• 64% of Europeans believe that discrimination based on ethnic origin is widespread (8 percentage points higher than in 2012).

• 50% of Europeans believe that discrimination based on religion or beliefs is widespread (11 percentage points higher than in 2012).

• Social circles are becoming more diverse. 70% of respondents have friends or acquaintances of a different religion or different beliefs from themselves; 62% have friends or acquaintances of different ethnic origins.

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Eurobarometer on Discrimination 2015: Social acceptance and discrimination on the grounds of religion and ethnicity2

2. Perception of religious and ethnic discrimination in the workplace

• 33% of Europeans believe that an expression of a religious belief (for example wearing a visible religious symbol) is a disadvantage in a recruitment procedure (10 percentage points higher than in 2012).

• 46% of respondents believe that the candidate’s skin colour or ethnic origin put them at a disadvantage (7 percentage points higher than in 2012).

• 94% of respondents say they would be at ease (82% comfortable, 12% indifferent) working with a Chris-tian colleague. This proportion is 87% for working with an atheist, 84% with a Jew, 81% for a Buddhist and 71% for a Muslim.

• When it comes to ethnicity, 94% of Europeans said they would be at ease (83% comfortable, 11% indif-ferent) working with a white colleague. This proportion is 83% for working with a black person, 83% with an Asian and 63% with a Roma person.

Eurobarometer on Discrimination 2015: Social acceptance and discrimination on the grounds of religion and ethnicity 3

3. Social acceptance of ethnic and religious minorities in political positions

• 64% of respondents would feel at ease (55% comfortable, 9% indifferent) with a person from a different ethnic origin in the highest elected political position; 18% would feel uncomfortable.

• 67% of respondents would feel at ease (56% comfortable, 11% indifferent) with a person from a differ-ent religion in the highest elected political position; 16% would feel uncomfortable.

4. Social acceptance of ethnic and religious minorities in social circles

• 89% of respondents say they would be at ease (79% comfortable, 10% indifferent) if their adult children had a relationship with a Christian person. This proportion is 76% with an atheist, 69% with a Jew, 65% with a Buddhist and 50% with a Muslim (30% stated they would feel uncomfortable in this last scenario with a Muslim person).

Eurobarometer on Discrimination 2015: Social acceptance and discrimination on the grounds of religion and ethnicity4

• When it comes to ethnicity, 92% of Europeans said they would be at ease (82% comfortable, 10% indif-ferent) if their adult children had a relationship with a white person. This proportion is 69% with an Asian person, 64% with a black person and 45% with a Roma person (34% stated they would feel uncomfort-able with this last group in this situation).

5. Citizens views on policies combatting ethnic and religious discrimination

• There is widespread support for measures in the workplace to foster diversity, such as training on diversity issues (80%), monitoring of recruitment procedures (77%), and monitoring the composition of the work-force (69%). 50% of Europeans think that enough is being done to promote diversity at the workplace in terms of ethnic origin, 34% think this is not the case. For diversity in terms of religion or belief this figure stands at 49%; and 30% for those who think that not enough is being done.

• A large majority of respondents agreed that lessons and material at school should include information about diversity in terms of religion or beliefs (80%) and ethnic origin (81%).

• A large majority of respondents expressed support for providing personal details on an anonymous basis on their religion or beliefs (71%) and ethnicity (72%), if it would help combat discrimination in their coun-try. Respondents belonging to religious and ethnic minorities reported to be willing to share this informa-tion (80% and 82% of the respondents belonging to these groups respectively).

• 40% of respondents think that ethnic minorities are excluded from national measures to promote eco-nomic recovery; 31% think this is the case for religious minorities.

• 60% and 59% of respondents feel that diversity is sufficiently reflected in the media in terms of ethnic origin and religion respectively. 32% think the contrary in terms of ethnicity and 31% for religion.

• 62% of Europeans think that new measures should be introduced to raise the level of protection for groups at risk of discrimination.