A group of left-leaning MEPs have warned of “systemic inequities” after it emerged that the EU executive’s lead official in combating racism, who is a black European woman, was excluded from a reshuffle that left her in a “lower position” than her white peers.
The European Commission announced earlier this month that its coordinator on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life, and her counterpart on battling anti-Muslim hatred, would be moved to its secretariat-general, the department at the apex of the EU executive that reports directly to the president, Ursula von der Leyen.
The commission’s anti-racism coordinator, however, will remain in a standard department, a lower and less weighty position, say MEPs and campaigners.
Michaela Moua, a Finnish former NGO executive, became the commission’s first anti-racism coordinator in 2021, a post that was created after the worldwide Black Lives Matter movement and the EU’s first anti-racism strategy. She is the only one of the trio who has not been moved to von der Leyen’s department.
In 2023 the commission announced the three coordinators would be upgraded to envoys to strengthen their work, suggesting it viewed the roles as equivalent in status.
Although none have been made envoys, the move to the secretariat-general for two is seen as opening the door to that promotion, while giving them greater political clout in the meantime.
In official questions to the commission, MEPs representing Socialists, the Left and Greens said: “This exclusion, affecting the only racialised coordinator, raises concerns about systemic inequities.”
They have asked the commission to explain how it will “ensure all forms of racism are treated with equal attention given that the coordinators are placed at different hierarchical levels?”
In a statement to the Guardian, Mélissa Camara, a French Green MEP, said: “The decision to place coordinators combating antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred at the highest levels of the EU Commission, while relegating the anti-racism coordinator to a lower position, raises serious concerns.”
The European Network Against Racism said the disparity sent “a dangerous message about the commission’s priorities”, created “unacceptable hierarchies within anti-racism work” and undermined “efforts to combat racism as a system issue”.
The European Commission did not respond to a request for comment before publication. After the article was published online, the commission sent a statement saying organisational changes were often proposed at the beginning of a new commission mandate “to fine-tune policy work, aligning our structures and resources accordingly”.
The statement said the coordinators for combating anti-Muslim hatred and antisemitism had been moved with the coordinator for inter-religious dialogue to the secretariat-general “to ensure interservice cross-policy coordination” on “interfaith exchanges”, while the work on combating racism “remains closely embedded in the equality work of the commission”. The anti-racism coordinator remained in the commission’s justice department, her role unchanged, the statement added.
“The commission will work on a new EU anti-racism strategy in this mandate, with the aim of ensuring that all people are able to live their lives free of the barriers that racism creates,” it said.
In the original EU anti-racism strategy, the commission pledged to “significantly improve the diversity of its staff” and tackle all forms of racism, including unconscious bias.
The outcry over the reshuffle comes after von der Leyen scrapped the standalone post of EU commissioner for equality. The commissioner for equality is now also responsible for preparedness and crisis management, which rights groups said represented a downgrade that risked undermining the equality agenda.
Camara is a member of the European parliament’s anti-racism and diversity intergroup, which was re-established in early December. For the first time, the group was set up with leaders from only three European parliament groups – the Socialists, Left and Greens – with no chairs or co-chairs from the centrist Renew group or the centre-right European People’s party, although these factions are providing members.
Insiders suggest this reflects the rightward shift of the parliament since June’s European elections led to a record number of far-right MEPs. “We are witnessing a more polarised and increasingly racist European parliament,” Camara said.
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