Attitudes towards minority groups in the European Union. A special analysis of the Eurobarometer 2000 survey on behalf of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia

The EUMC financed a special survey in Spring 2000 to study the attitudes towards minorities and migrants in the EU Member States. In 1997 'the European year against racism', results from the Eurobarometer Survey showed a high level of negative attitudes among the majority population towards migrants and minorities. The results of the EUMC survey three years later showed that, in some ways, the attitudes had improved in that there had been an increase with regard to people favouring policies designed to improve the coexistence of majorities and minorities in the Member States. However, the results also showed a negative development. There had been an increase in the number of people concerned about unemployment, loss of social welfare and the drop in educational standards, who blamed minorities and migrants for the change. The data showed that rejecting cultural diversity is closely related to this fear for socio-economic changes. The survey was prepared by SORA based in Vienna, Austria.

Please note that the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) was replaced by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in 2007. It appears that this publication is no longer available on the FRA website.