Racism is on the increase in the Old Continent. The new European Agency for fundamental rights, an independent body of the European Union based in Vienna, which this year has replaced the Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia, has published its first Report on discriminatory attitudes in the 27 member states. Presented a few days ago to the EU Parliament, the lengthy document (172 pages of texts and tables) has now been published on the website of the Agency, at http://fra.europa.eu. The Report, which refers to 2006 statistics, "reviews the level of discrimination in such spheres as labour, the property market and education" and "condemns the lack of adequate information about the racial abuse that is committed in a large part of the EU member states". According to the experts from Vienna, "out of the eleven states that have adequate information to measure the level of racism-related violence, eight states record a rising level of violence: Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Poland, the United Kingdom and Slovakia". "A trend reversal has been recorded" only in the Czech Republic, Austria and Sweden. But the Agency notices that, "in the other 16 states, such information turned out to be inadequate or even non existent". (continued)
