Hate speech has harmful impacts on the individual victims, or groups of victims, but also on our society at large. Undermining the fundamental values of the EU, such as respect for human dignity, freedom and equality. Under EU law, racist and xenophobic hate motivated crime and speech are illegal. The Framework Decision on combating certain forms of expressions of racism and xenophobia requires the criminalisation of public incitement to violence or hatred based on race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin. The Commission’s policies address also specific forms of hate speech and hate crime against groups and communities (e.g., antisemitism, anti-Muslim hatred or anti-gypsyism, hate speech and hate crime relating to gender and sexual orientation.

Addressing hate speech from all angles increases the chance of combating it in a sustainable manner. Thus, in line with all the above initiatives and with the Victims Rights Directive and the EU Strategy on Victims’ Rights, the successful proposal is expected to reinforce hate crime training and capacity building for Police Authorities and other relevant security practitioners, in particular to enhance their tools and methods for lawful detection, reporting and data/evidence collection and analysis of the hate speech related activities that are considered as crime or could lead to a crime, notably the ones supported by advanced digital technologies, such as in emerging cyber environments. By doing so, being an innovation action, the successful proposal is expected to build on previously developed tools for related applications (such as text and image matching). The successful proposal should also support the implementation of the voluntary Code of Conduct on countering illegal hate speech online that the European Commission initiated in 2016 with IT companies, the European strategy for a better internet for kids, the Digital Services Act and the outcomes of the “Study on digital violent right-wing extremist content and manifestations of hate speech online”. Similarly, any other relevant development, study or initiative should be taken into account. Evolutions in hate crime and hate speech, such as their sparks in times of social or economic crises (e.g. pandemics and wars) should be considered too. In order to derive effective responses and improve the understanding of the cultural and societal aspects of hate speech and hate crime, as well as of the key challenges for combating it, the successful proposal should include local, national and international dimensions, civil society perspectives, and analysis of good practices. An added value of the proposal would be to also develop modern and effective awareness raising campaigns for relevant Civil Society Organisations and Police Authorities in order to pass key messages to potential victims, as well as wide communities, while taking into account European multicultural dimension.

Methods for evaluating proposed solutions should also be developed. In addition, proposals should delineate the plans to develop possible future uptake and upscaling at national and EU level for possible next steps after the project completion.