Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

The Commission presented almost two years ago the Communication on ‘A more inclusive and protective Europe: extending the list of EU offences to include hate speech and hate crimes’. While fighting hate speech and hate crimes should be a clear priority for our Union, the Council still has not adopted its proposal for a Decision.

In order to be able to add hate speech and hate crimes to the list of Euro-crimes, and in the near future to establish minimum standards for defining criminal offences and sanctions applicable in all Member States of the Union, this first phase needs to be completed.

Unfortunately, insufficient progress has been made within the Council of the Union and the unanimity required to adopt this decision has not been reached.

The aim of this draft report is to make a strong political call to the Council to adopt this needed decision and to bring recommendations to the Commission for the drafting of the future European legislation to combat hate speech and hate crime.

The current EU framework only covers hate speech and hate crime based on race, skin colour, religion and national or ethnic origin, so there is a clear need to effectively address hate speech and hate crime based on, but not limited to, sex, sexual orientation, age and disability, as proposed by the Commission.

Hate speech and hate crimes attack human dignity, weaken society as a whole and undermine the foundations of the Union, which is fuelled by extremist and populist movements and the multiplier effect of social media.

The social dynamics of intolerance, stigmatisation and discrimination are growing and their ‘normalisation’ requires the attention of the authorities and society as a whole. Any old or new motivation for hatred must be combated at the social, administrative or criminal level, if necessary.

This dynamism also requires protection that does not exclude new social motivations for hatred, since it is the dignity of the victims that must be protected as a universal human right. It is necessary to underline that minors are particularly vulnerable victims when it comes to this type of crime.

Criminal protection against hatred must be proportionate, which implies protecting freedom of expression in an exquisite manner and only limiting it when it is fully justified to do so. It should be noted that not all hate speech constitutes a crime but contributes to normalise manifestations of hatred and intolerance, and is therefore not harmless.

There is a need for Member States to take collective responsibility for the proliferation of such incidents and to unlock the possibility of adequate and sufficient coercive elements. Considering these areas of crime also as Euro-crimes will help to design a common and more effective strategy to combat hate crimes with a social motivation.