EU to fund anti-racism lessons for police

Date: 22/01/1998

By Simon Coss

POLICE officers in nine EU countries are to go back to the classroom this year for anti-racism lessons paid for partly with money from Union coffers.

The European Commission will provide more than 1 million ecu for the scheme which, say organisers, is designed to tackle "common prejudices", misconceptions and cultural misunderstandings.

Heinz Stieb, of the Austrian anti-racist group People's Aid Austria (PAA), which will coordinate the programme, says the classes will aim to "replace fantasies with facts". He argues that while specific problems vary between EU member states, common themes are emerging.

Key among these appears to be a general perception among police forces that crime rates among ethnic minorities and foreign communities are higher than among the population at large. Stieb believes that this is because most police officers only come into real contact with such communities when they are making arrests.

Other problems often stem from cultural misunderstandings between police and minority groups. "In Africa, for example, people will lower their eyes as a sign of respect for someone. But when an Austrian police officer encounters this sort of behaviour, he often thinks 'this person has something to hide'," explained Stieb.

The Commission argues that being able to organise the scheme at all has been something of a political coup.

Persuading police forces within the EU to cooperate with each other has never been easy and the Commission is normally hamstrung by the fact that it has only a very limited role in policy-making in the field of justice and home affairs.

Commission officials say that while many EU justice ministries were initially wary, they warmed to the idea once it had been explained to them.

"The Danes were very unhappy at first, for example, but then they calmed down a bit and came on board," explained one.

Twelve local projects in the nine participating countries - Denmark, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Spain, Italy, the UK, the Netherlands and France - will receive half of their funding from the Commission's Directorate-General for social affairs (DGV), with the other half provided by national authorities.

Three times a year, all the participants will meet up for Europe-wide seminars, the first of which will take place at the end of next month in Vienna. DGV will fund 80% of the cost of such pan-European activities, with PAA providing the rest of the money. The scheme will initially run for two years.

PAA admits it is disappointed that it has not been possible to persuade all 15 EU governments to participate. "Portugal should be a partner and so should Greece, but so far nothing," said Stieb, adding that a lack of national anti-racism organisations and a police culture unsympathetic to such initiatives obstructed cooperation in these two countries.