Opinion on how widespread ethnic discrimination is

In 2019, an EU-wide Eurobarometer survey found that over half of Europeans believe racial or ethnic discrimination to be widespread in their country, but with considerable variations between Member States (see Figure 1). It also explored public attitudes towards people from groups at risk of discrimination. For the EU as a whole, attitudes to racialised and ethnic minorities have become more positive since an earlier survey conducted in 2015. In 2019, 65 % of respondents said that they were comfortable with the idea of a person with a different ethnic origin to the majority population in their country being elected to the highest political office (an increase of 10 percentage points). However, as with public perceptions of the extent of discrimination, there are wide variations between Member States. For example, on average, 79 % of respondents say they would feel comfortable having daily contact with a colleague who is a black person, but proportions vary, from 96 % of respondents in the Netherlands and 95 % in Sweden to 46 % in Hungary, 48 % in Bulgaria and 57 % in Austria. Similarly, two thirds of respondents in the EU say that they would feel comfortable if one of their children was in a love relationship with a black person. However, at country level, this varies from 89 % in the Netherlands, 88 % in Sweden, 86 % in the United Kingdom (UK) and 80 % in France to 33 % in Slovakia, 26 % in Hungary and 15 % in Bulgaria. Bulgaria is the only country where more than half say they would be uncomfortable (63 %), and uncomfortable is the most common answer in Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia and Lithuania.