On 18 March 2021, the Council of Europe’s anti-racism commission (ECRI) published its 2020 annual report, ahead of the International Day against Racial Discrimination marked on 21 March 2021. It identified four key challenges Europe was facing last year:

• mitigating the disproportional impact of the Covid19 pandemic on vulnerable groups
• tackling deeprooted racism in public life
• combating antiMuslim racism and antisemitism in the face of terrorism
• addressing the backlash against the protection of human rights of LGBTI people

“Few, if any crises since the Second World War have had such a global impact on Europe as the Covid-19 pandemic which came to overshadow other trends in 2020,” said Maria Daniella Marouda, Chair of ECRI.

Migrants and asylum seekers, especially recently arrived and irregularly present, have faced particular difficulties: they have not been able to benefit from essential healthcare due to the lack of social security number and migrant seasonal workers living and working in poor sanitary conditions were particularly susceptible of contracting the virus. Besides, the economic downturn caused by lockdown measures and other restrictions resulted in the immediate loss of many informal or otherwise precarious jobs among migrants and other groups.

The year 2020 was equally marked by a wave of world-wide protests against racism. The racial justice movement – Black Lives Matter – unfolded in the United States and resonated in Europe as well. “These events have revealed the extent to which racial profiling and racist police abuse continue to affect vulnerable groups, reinforcing in Europe concerns of what is increasingly referred to as institutional racism,” ECRI Chair suggested. Such racism is covert or overt, and resides in the policies, procedures, operations and cultures of public and private institutions; it erodes trust in society and in the law enforcement. Increasing diversity within the police and adequate training should be at the core of any government action