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Monitoring and recording antisemitism in the EU – State of play and ways forward

This report looks at antisemitism in the EU, focusing on what can be done to address gaps in recording and inconsistencies in data collection. It highlights existing tools and guidance for Member States to improve their recording systems. The analysis is based on official government statistics and information from publicly available sources across EU Member States, as well as Albania, North Macedonia, and Serbia. Detailed country overviews are available for all countries covered. Antisemitism has been monitored by FRA since 2004.
This report builds on the 2024 publication, ‘Jewish People’s Experiences and Perceptions of Antisemitism’.


2. Recording of antisemitic incidents by national authorities

This section highlights gaps in how national authorities record antisemitic incidents, along with the continued broad diversity there exists in current recording practices. The section also briefly considers challenges that relate to recording online antisemitism.

Official systems for collecting data on hate crimes are generally based on police records or criminal justice data. As noted, under these systems, the responsible authorities record different types of data and apply different definitions and classifications of antisemitism, as Table 3 indicates. These differences reveal a great level of variation in recording practices on antisemitism, which prevents any meaningful comparisons from being made between countries. Here, it can be noted that FRA has mapped hate crime recording and data collection practice across the EU, which provides more detail on what may constitute an adequate recording system.

Table 3 – Officially recorded antisemitic incidents in EU Member States and EU candidate countries participating as observers in the work of FRA, 2019–2024 (a)

Country

Recorded incident

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

Austria

Antisemitic offences motivated by right-wing extremism

30

36

53

33

43

59

Austria

Crimes with an antisemitic bias motivation

n/a

n/a

269

225

263

347

Belgium

Cases of Holocaust denial and revisionism

14

28

15

10

13

12

Belgium

Incidents of antisemitism reported to the national equality body

n/a

n/a

96

57

121

277

Bulgaria

Convictions of antisemitic crimes

0

0

0

0

0

Cyprus

Antisemitic incidents

0

0

2

0

5

3

Czechia

Criminal offences motivated by antisemitism

23

27

37

25

18

33

Germany

Politically motivated crimes with an antisemitic motive

2 032

2 351

3 027

2 641

5 164

6 236

Denmark

Extremist crimes targeting Jews

51

79

93

37(a)

176

222

Estonia

Antisemitic crimes

2

0

1

0

0

0

Greece

Incidents motivated by antisemitism

10

9

5

5

6

4

Spain

Antisemitic incidents

5

3

11

13

23

37

Finland

Antisemitic crimes

12

18

17

10

34

21

France

Antisemitic actions and threats

687

339

589

436

1 676

1 570

Croatia

Criminal acts motivated by antisemitism

2

0

0

2

1

0

Ireland

Antisemitic incidents

3

n/a

n/a

n/a

15

Italy

Antisemitic criminal conduct

91(a)

101

101

94

316

304

Lithuania

Antisemitic incidents

5

3

1

5

8

13

Luxembourg

Antisemitic incidents under investigation or prosecution

n/a

n/a

n/a

2

Latvia

Antisemitic incidents

2

1

0

0

6

0

Malta

Antisemitic incidents

0

0

0

0

0

0

Netherlands

Criminal discriminatory antisemitic incidents

768(a)

517

627

549

880

880

Poland

Antisemitic incidents

128

81

111(a)

130

103

125

Romania

Incidents pertaining to antisemitism

16

18

31

51

42

63

Sweden

Crimes with an antisemitic motive

n/a

170(b)

n/a

145

n/a

312

Slovenia

Antisemitic incidents

1

0

0

1

3

1

Slovakia

People sentenced for crimes motivated by antisemitism

3

0

4

24(a)

0

n/a

Albania

Antisemitic incidents

n/a

0

0

0

0

0

North Macedonia

Antisemitic incidents

0

0

0

0

0

0

Serbia

Antisemitic incidents

1

3

4

0

n/a

1

Alternative text: The table shows the numbers and types of officially recorded incidents of antisemitism over the period of 2019 to 2024. The table indicates that responsible authorities record different types of data, such as numbers of incidents, offences, crimes, investigations, prosecutions or convictions. The table also shows that recording practices change in some countries change, which prevents year-on-year comparisons to be made within some countries. The available data show that most countries record very low numbers of incidents. France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands record the highest numbers of incidents.

Notes:

(a)  Data not comparable between countries due to differences in recording practices.

(b)  Data not comparable with the previous year due to changes in recording practices.

n/a:  Data not available

Source: FRA, 2025.

As Table 3 indicates, how countries record antisemitism is characterised by major gaps and inconsistencies in official recording systems: each country captures different types of acts, incidents, offences, threats and convictions according to its own categorisation and definition of antisemitism. Indeed, there are ‘differences in national definitions and classifications of antisemitic incidents, gaps in data recording and collection, and high levels of under-reporting prevent comparison between countries. For example, some Member States record the overall reported number of incidents motivated by antisemitic bias that came to the attention of official data collection channels. Others report only those antisemitic incidents that were prosecuted,’ as FRA noted in the overview of antisemitic incidents recorded in the EU that it published in 2023. The country overviews that accompany this publication provide more detail on what information is recorded in different countries.

While France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands tend to record the highest numbers of incidents, this should not be taken as an indicator that antisemitism is more prevalent in these countries compared to others. Indeed, the size of the Jewish population in any given country and other factors affect how many incidents are recorded. These include the willingness and ability of victims and witnesses to report incidents, and trusting that the authorities will deal with such incidents appropriately. Higher numbers of recorded incidents could also reflect improvements and the increased efficiency of the recording system that is in place. For more information on practices that can lead to better recording and reporting of hate crime, see the compendium of practices on hate crime compiled by FRA.

In many countries, the number of recorded incidents remains low, with some also not recording any incidents at all. Where this is the case, this should not be taken as an indicator that antisemitism is not an issue of concern. Rather, low or inexistant numbers would be an indication of recording systems that do not adequately capture antisemitic incidents. This observation is confirmed by the fact that the numbers of antisemitic incidents recorded by civil society organisations tend to be much higher than those recorded by official sources, as the country overviews that accompany this publication show.

To reiterate, many countries operate official recording systems that do not capture the full extent to which antisemitism is widespread in their societies. This could be because recording systems simply lack a tool that enables the flagging of an antisemitic bias motivation, or because of restrictions on the recording of sensitive personal data, for example. Indeed, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights’ practical guide on hate crime data collection and recording mechanisms highlights that ‘data-protection laws may restrict authorities’ powers to record the ethnicity or religious affiliation of a victim, thus apparently preventing them from recording the basis of a hate crime’ (p. 18).

In this respect, it should be noted that sensitive personal data can be collected for substantial reasons of public interest, under strict safeguards, which are stated in Article 9 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (Regulation (EU) 2016/679). Furthermore, the European Commission’s guidance note on the collection and use of equality data based on racial or ethnic origin provides practical information on how to collect such data in full compliance with the GDPR and national data protection rules, as does the European Commission’s note on collecting and using equality data in full compliance with EU GDPR and national data protection rules.

Overall, it can be said that current practice in recording by the relevant authorities within the criminal justice system, combined with low reporting rates, contributes to a gross underestimation of the extent, nature and characteristics of antisemitism in the EU and in countries that participate in the work of FRA as observers. Indeed, ‘very few victims report antisemitic incidents [they encounter] to any relevant authority or body, [FRA’s] survey findings show. [The respondents in the survey] report 26 % of online antisemitism encountered, 28 % of incidents of antisemitic harassment, 49 % of incidents of antisemitic violence and 11 % of antisemitic discrimination’. Section 3 in this report, Ways forward, provides indications on how what could be done to improve recording systems.

An example of bringing stakeholders together to harmonise data collection on antisemitism is provided below.


Recording antisemitic incidents online

As mentioned at the beginning of this section, the recording of incidents of antisemitism online presents its own challenges, not least due to the scale of the phenomenon. Findings from FRA’s third survey on antisemitism show that 90 % of respondents experienced antisemitism online. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and reactions to the Hamas attacks and the ensuing military intervention in Gaza fuelled antisemitic narratives online, including Holocaust denial, distortion and trivialisation, and conspiracy theories (for more information on online antisemitism, see Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2024, Research Compilation on Online Antisemitism).

Related to this, the Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065) fully entered into force on 17 February 2024. Under this act, platforms are obliged to provide ways for people to easily report illegal online content, including antisemitic content. In this respect, FRA suggested that ‘Member States should help put measures in place to strengthen the capacity and ability of law enforcement and judicial authorities to detect, investigate and prosecute illegal online antisemitic content’.

In this context, it should be noted that evidence collected by FRA shows that algorithms used for offensive speech detection may put too much weight on certain terms and words. For example, whereas using the word ‘Jew’ or ‘Jewish’ in posts sometimes leads the algorithms to flag non-hateful content as hateful, they also miss other, more subtle expressions of antisemitism, where those terms are not used. ‘The very fact that such algorithms overreact to certain terms is understood by users of online platforms, who use this knowledge to avoid their offensive comments being singled out or to avoid being blocked. For example, some users posting hate speech use the word ‘Juice’ instead of ‘Jews’ to avoid detection,’ as FRA noted in its report on bias in algorithms (p. 66). For more information, see FRA, 2023, Online content moderation – Current challenges in detecting hate speech.

An example of a network created to monitor antisemitism is provided below.