European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI): published the annual report 2025
In May 2026, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) has published its annual report covering the period from 1 January to 31 December 2025.
Within this report, the Council of Europe’s body underlines the alarming levels of hate speech and its trivialisation across Europe and voices grave concerns about the strong ripple effects of such hate speech. The key lines of actions that ECRI looks at within the report are: tackling hate speech in politics, strengthening policies and legislation, harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) to combat online hate, protecting children, young people, and providing a safe environment for all those active in countering hate speech.
ECRI observed that, amongst the most frequent grounds for hate we have ethnic or national origin, followed by characteristics such as religion, citizenship, sexual orientation and gender identity. Specifically, Foreign nationals, LGBTI persons, Roma and Muslims are the primary targets of political hate speech based on negative stereotyping and misinformation, notably during election periods. Growing concerns also involve the disinformation campaigns that originate from abroad.
The ECRI Chair, Bertil Cottier, has stated that ““Hate speech targets not only individual people but society as a whole” and “When people are made to feel unsafe because of who they are, or are perceived to be, they may feel excluded and withdraw from public life. That is why hate speech harms not only victims and affected communities but also democracy itself. Political leaders, public officials and online platform operators should fully recognise their role and responsibility, reject hateful discourse and promote inclusive narratives”.
A further concern that is highlighted within the report is hateful online content, which is spreading rapidly through social media and messaging platforms. Specifically, elements such as the use of anonymous profiles and bots represent obstacles in the investigation and sanctioning of the spread of hateful content. In order to address this issue, AI tools have been recognized to yield results. To this regard, Bertil Cottier has stated “AI holds real promise for detecting and managing hateful content online,” and “But its use must go hand in hand with strong human oversight and clear channels for reporting online hate speech, including through ‘trusted flaggers’, to ensure that governments and internet intermediaries can act effectively.”