Legislating Equality The Politics of Antidiscrimination Policy in Europe.

The development of antidiscrimination policy in Europe closely mirrored European Union deepening in the 1990s, but its roots lie in developments during the 1980s. Actors in the European Parliament saw a political opening for action with the rise of the radical right in places like France and Germany. In the 1980s and early 1990s, racist acts of violence and the stunning success of radical right political parties across Europe catapulted the issues of immigration, xenophobia, fascism, and racism to the forefront. The European Parliament was only beginning to take on a more important role in the supranational structures that were under construction during the 1980s, but it would play a key role in the development of an anti-racism agenda and what would ultimately become racial anti-discrimination policy for the European Union. Legislating Equality begins by examining the evolving discourses around racism in Europe from the mid-1980s through the late 1990s.