Brussels – The European Union is increasingly intolerant. Not only the surge of antisemitic incidents after October 7, 2023 but also the slower and more gradual rise of Islamophobia: according to the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), today, one in two Muslims in the EU is a victim of “racism and discrimination in everyday life.”
A noticeable increase since the last survey in 2016: Muslims experiencing racial discrimination increased from 39 percent to 47 percent. Potentially, we are talking about over 13 million people: Muslims represent the second largest religious group in the EU. According to the Pew Research Center, there were 26 million in 2016. Between October 2021 and October 2022, the EU Agency surveyed 9,604 Muslims in 13 EU countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden.
The report reveals significant differences in the 13 member states surveyed: Austria is the most Islamophobic, with 71 percent of Muslims targeted, followed by Germany and Finland. The rate of racial discrimination drops steeply in Spain and Italy, the countries with the lowest levels. In general, the most affected are young Muslims and women who wear religious clothing. Intertwined in the Islamophobic behavior of EU citizens are not only religious elements but also the skin color and ethnic or immigrant background of the European Muslim population. “A phenomenon fueled by the conflicts in the Middle East and made worse by the dehumanizing anti-Muslim rhetoric we see across the continent,” said the director of the EU Agency, Sirpa Rautio.
Islamophobia mainly manifests itself in employment and housing rights. According to the survey, 39 percent of Muslims experience discrimination when looking for work and 35 percent in the workplace, up from 31 percent and 23 percent in 2016. The figure sharply increases when looking only at women wearing religious clothing, who face discrimination when looking for work in 45 percent of cases. In addition, two out of five Muslims – 41 percent – are overqualified for their jobs, compared to 22 percent of EU citizens in general.
There are the same difficulties when looking for a home: one-third of respondents said they coiuld not buy or rent an apartment because of their religious beliefs. In the last survey relating to 2016, they were 22 percent. The rights agency found an alarming gap in education: Muslims are three times more likely to drop out of school early than the general EU population (30 percent compared to 9.6 percent). All this fuels the risk of poverty, with 31 percent of Muslim households surveyed struggling to make ends meet, compared to 19 percent of all European households.
To complete the picture painted by the EU Agency, nearly one in three Muslims (27 percent) experience racial harassment, and half of those who were stopped by police in the year before the survey believe they were victims of racial profiling.
In September 2020, Ursula von der Leyen launched the EU Action Plan for Anti-Racism, announcing to the European Parliament that it was “time for change, time to build a truly anti-racist Union, a Union that moves from condemnation to action.” The EU Fundamental Rights Agency insists that this plan be renewed beyond 2025 and include “specific action to counter anti-Muslim racism.”
