Introduction

In November 2004, the former Directorate-General for Employment and Social Affairs became the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. This change in nomenclature was accompanied by a refreshing of the Commission's Internet pages on anti-discrimination. In the transition to the new pages, the dedicated website on ‘anti-racism policy’ disappeared and was consigned to the archives section. This could be dismissed as a small matter of information presentation, but could it also be viewed as symptomatic of the current state of the Union's anti-racism policy?

The conventional view amongst many academic commentators is that race and ethnicity find themselves at the pinnacle of the so-called ‘hierarchy of equality’. The main reason for this perception is the relative strength of the Race Equality Directive when compared to other areas of EU anti-discrimination law. Notably, the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of racial or ethnic origin applies to a wider range of areas than equivalent legislation on discrimination on grounds of sex, religion or belief, disability, age and sexual orientation. Given such disparities within EU anti-discrimination legislation, there are good reasons to argue that a higher level of protection exists in respect of discrimination on grounds of racial or ethnic origin. Nevertheless, does this fully reflect the strength of the Union's commitment to combating racism? This chapter asks whether the picture painted by an exclusive focus on anti-discrimination legislation may be misleading.