The European Commission wants to see hates peech and hate crime added to the list of EU crimes!
Based on the results of Spark’s study, the European Commission (DG JUST) has chosen to present an initiative to extend the list of ‘EU crimes’ to hate speech and hate crime, as announced by President von der Leyen in her 2020 State of the Union speech. See the Commission’s communication ‘A more inclusive and protective Europe: extending the list of EU crimes to hate speech and hate crime’ here.
To support the Commission’s initiative, Spark conducted an independent study mapping the legal frameworks tackling hate speech and hate crime in all Member States, along with analysing a large range of data on the seriousness and cross-border dimension of hate speech and hate crimes and on developments in this area of crime; this was in order to assess whether the criteria of Article 83(1) TFEU were met. Our results show that hate speech and hate crime – offline and online – have become particularly serious and worrying phenomena across Europe. We are very proud to present our full Study report here.
The next steps to extend the list of the EU crimes to hate speech and hate crime are:
- the Council decides to extend the list with the European Parliament’s consent;
- the Commission makes a legislative proposal.
See more details in this factsheet.
