ENAR Conference

on

Combating Racism and Xenophobia as a Crime

European strategies

11-12 September 2004

Venue

Tulip Inn
Avenue du Boulevard 17

1210 Brussels

Registration

Friday, 10^th September from 18.00 until 20.00 - Lobby Tulip Inn

Saturday, 11^th September from 9.30 until 10.30 - Conference Room OSLO

Programme

Saturday, 11^th September 2004

11.00 – 11.15 Welcome & Opening speech

by Bashy Quraishy, Chair of ENAR

11.15 – 11.45 Fighting racism and xenophobia in the Belgian Context

by Marianne Gratia, Mouvement contre le racisme, l’Antisémitisme et la Xénophobie (MRAX) and Jos Vander Velpen, Liga voor Mensenrechten

11.45 – 12.15 Keynote speech on fighting racist and xenophobic offences

by Louis Michel, former Belgian Minister on Foreign Affairs

(to be confirmed)

12.15 – 12.30 Questions and feedback from the floor

12.30 – 14.00 Lunch buffet

14.00 – 16.00 European approaches to combat racist and xenophobic offences

Chair: Anastacia Crickley, Chair of European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC)

Speakers:

Ioannis Dimitrakopoulos, EUMC

Kevin Kitching, Independent Human Rights Consultant, UK

Dick Houtzager, Landelijk Bureau ter bestrijding van Rassendiscriminatie (LBR), The Netherlands

16.00 – 16.30 Questions and comments from the floor

16.30 – 17.00 Coffee break

17.00 – 18.30 Analysis of current approaches: interactive debate between contributors and participants on shortcomings and obstacles of the European approaches on combating racism and xenophobia as a crime

Chair: Patrick Yu, Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities

Contributors:

David Diaz-Jogeix, Amnesty International, International Secretariat, UK (tbc)

Paul Van Sasse, LBR, The Netherlands (tbc)

19.30- 20.30 Reception to celebrate ENAR’ s 5^th Anniversary

20.30 Party at venue

Programme

Sunday, 12^th September 2004

09.30 – 09.45 Introduction to today’s program and aim of workshops

by Vera Egenberger, Director of ENAR

09.45 – 11.15 Strategy building workshops: Fighting racist and xenophobic crime need a specific and common approach at the EU level, which differs from the approach taken on racial discrimination. The workshops will seek to identify multiple strategies on the national and European level to get the fight against racism and xenophobia on the forefront of the political agenda and to develop new instruments to tackle the issue.

Workshop 1: Monitoring, reporting and campaigning against racist violence and hatred

Chair: Isabelle Carles-Berkowitz, MRAX, Belgium

Experts: Suresh Grover, The Monitoring Group, UK

Ivan Vesely, Sdružení Dženo, Czech Republic

Workshop 2: Different national legislative approaches and interpretations of racist and xenophobic crime - the importance of litigation

Chair: Claude Kahn, European Roma Rights Centre, Hungary

Expert: Katrien Degrauwe, Centre for equal opportunities and opposition to racism, Belgium

Workshop 3: From the Treaty of Amsterdam, along the Framework Decision on combating Racism and xenophobia to Tampere II - new strategies to tackle racism and xenophobia as a crime on the EU agenda?

Chair: Pascale Charhon, Centre Européen Juif d’Information, Belgium

Experts: Pierre Lelouche, Député UMP, Vice-Chair of the Parliamentary Assembly of NATO, France (tbc)

Luciano Scagliotti, ENAR Italy

11.15 – 11.45 Coffee break

11.45 – 13.00 Strategy building workshops (continuation)

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch

14.00 – 15.00 Reports from the workshops

15.00 – 15.20 Keynote speech on EU future perspectives

by Antonio Vitorino, Commissioner Justice and Home Affairs EC (tbc)

15.20 – 15.40 Conclusions by Sophie De Jonckheere, Policy Manager of ENAR

15.40 – 16.00 Closing remarks by Bashy Quraishy, Chair of ENAR