From being repeatedly asked for ID to feeling threatened by harmful rhetoric, politicians say lack of diversity is undermining work of EU
As a newly minted member of the European parliament in 2019, Alice Kuhnke swiftly learned to keep her ID badge handy. Sometimes the request to see it would come just moments after she had swiped it to enter a building, other times she would be stopped hours later as she made her way to meetings.
Six months into the job, she mentioned the stringent security measures over coffee with a few colleagues. “They said ‘Are you serious? I’ve never been stopped.’”
Kuhnke, a Black MEP from Sweden, put the same question to her Black colleagues. The answer confirmed what she had suspected: “Some of them had been stopped.”
It was one of her first hints of what it meant to work in a European parliament that is profoundly out of step with the demographic reality of Europe. While racialised minorities make up an estimated 10% of the EU’s population, MEPs from these groups accounted for just 4.3% of the total lawmakers in the last mandate, according to analysis by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR).
This is the best summary I could come up with:
While racialised minorities make up an estimated 10% of the EU’s population, MEPs from these groups accounted for just 4.3% of the total lawmakers in the last mandate, according to analysis by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR).
What is probably happening, according to a recent study based on interviews with 140 MEPs and staffers, is “normalised whiteness” in the parliament is helping perpetuate racism, leaving those who seek to confront discrimination feeling as though they are “shouting to a brick wall”, in the words of one interviewee.
While he described his overall experience as an MEP as positive, Chahim was left rattled last year as suspicions swirled over allegations that Morocco and Qatar had bribed EU politicians and staffers to promote their interests.
Herzberger-Fofana, Germany’s first MEP of African origin, said she was brutally pushed against a wall by four officers, who ordered the septuagenarian to stand with her hands up and legs spread as they searched her bag.
Kuhnke said the lack of diversity would take on even greater importance as EU lawmakers turned their attention to crucial issues such as the regulation of artificial intelligence, pointing to the growing body of work that has laid bare the biases and racism that exist within AI tools.
Caro Maya cited the “serious risk” political parties were taking if they refused to include communities such as Roma – Europe’s largest ethnic minority – on their electoral lists.
The original article contains 1,276 words, the summary contains 237 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!