Restricted call for proposals for public authorities on preventing and combating racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance, and in particular hate crime and hate speech - REC-RRAC-HATE-AG-2018

Deadline: Sep 27, 2018  
CALL EXPIRED

Priorities and activities to be co-financed

1. Priorities

Public authorities bear the primary responsibility of ensuring an adequate response to racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance by designing and implementing laws, policies, tools and practices to prevent, counter and, where relevant, sanction their manifestations, in particular hate crime and hate speech, and ensure justice, protection and support for victims. This responsibility concerns first and foremost law enforcement and criminal justice authorities, including police, public prosecution authorities and the courts. Other public authorities, including those in charge of equality, non-discrimination, education, health or social welfare, have also a role to play to contribute making responses comprehensive and effective.

Against this background, this call is aimed at supporting projects by public authorities of the Member States, be it at national, regional or local level, aimed at preventing and combating racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance, and in particular improving the authorities' responses to hate crime and hate speech, by:

- designing and implementing policy actions, action plans and strategies at national, regional or local level to effectively prevent and combat racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance;

- developing tools and practices for the public authorities to achieve better implementation on the ground of relevant national legislation, in particular by ensuring effective identification, investigation, prosecution and sanctioning of hate speech and hate crime, and for enforcing the rights and ensuring a fair and adequate treatment of victims;

- improving recording and data collection on hate crime at national, regional or local level.

Projects contributing to the correct and full implementation of national legislation transposing the Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA on combating Racism and Xenophobia by means of criminal law are of particular interest.

Proposals are where relevant expected to build on the work of the EU High Level Group on combating racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance (http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/just/item-detail.cfm?&item_id=51025).

Public authorities may decide to target projects to address the specificities of particular forms of intolerance, such as Antisemitism, anti-Muslim hatred, homophobia and transphobia, antigypsyism, xenophobia and anti-migrant hatred, Afrophobia, hate crimes against persons with disabilities.

2. Description of the activities

In relation to the above mentioned priorities, the call will fund projects by public authorities of the Member States focused on one or more among the following activities:

- achieve better coordination and strengthened cooperation among public authorities and other key actors, including through the design and implementation of targeted policy actions, action plans and strategies and/or cooperation protocols and practices or the setting up and functioning of coordination bodies or entities involving different national and/or regional and/or local public authorities, civil society organisations, targeted communities;

- build capacity of public authorities, in particular law enforcement and criminal justice authorities, to be able to effectively investigate, prosecute and adequately sentence hate crime and hate speech cases and to adequately interact with victims and ensure respect of their rights through training activities, taking into account the key guiding principles on hate crime training for law enforcement and criminal justice authorities developed by the EU High Level Group on combating racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance (http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/document.cfm?doc_id=43050);

- develop and set up tools and practices at national, regional or local level to ensure support and protection for victims of hate crime and hate speech, including through the development and strengthening of victim support services, the setting up of protection protocols, initiatives aimed at addressing the issue of underreporting and initiatives aimed at building trust between communities and public authorities, taking into account the key guiding principles on hate crime victims' access to justice, support and protection developed by the EU High Level Group on combating racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance (http://http//ec.europa.eu/newsroom/just/document.cfm?doc_id=48874);

- build a solid system for effective recording and data collection on hate crime at national, regional or local level, building on the work of the EU High Level Group on combating racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance and in particular the key guiding principles on improving the recording of hate crime by law enforcement authorities (http://fra.europa.eu/en/news/2017/improving-recording-hate-crime-law-enforcement-authorities).

Mutual learning activities and exchange of best practices between public authorities of different Member States are welcome to be included in the proposals where this can bring an added value.

3. Expected results

• Curbing manifestations of racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance across the EU, including incidents of hate crime and hate speech;
• Development and implementation of comprehensive policy actions and/or strategies to prevent and combat racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance, including, where relevant, by focusing on specific grounds;
• Strengthened cooperation and exchange of information between competent public authorities as well as other key actors such as civil society organisations and community representatives in the area of preventing and combating hate crime and hate speech;
• Improved knowledge and awareness of competent public authorities of the impact of racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance, and in particular hate crime and hate speech, of current trends and better understanding of the various forms of intolerance and of the legal framework, including rights of victims of hate crime and hate speech;
• Increased capacity of competent public authorities to effectively investigate, prosecute and adequately sentence hate crime and hate speech cases;
• Improved support to hate crime victims, better awareness of the rights of victims of hate crime and hate speech and increased number of reported hate crime and hate speech incidents;
• Improved methodologies on recording and collecting data on hate crimes, and enhanced comparability of data and statistics across the EU.