The European Union (ED) Directive against racial and ethnic origin discrimination has been criticized for a number of reasons. The main ones are, firstly, that it places racial and ethnic origin at the top of the hierarchy of discrimination grounds in the ED and that it does not cover discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief; secondly, that its main aim appears to be to establish formal equality or equal treatment rather than a more substantive form of equality; and, thirdly, that it gives only limited protection to third country nationals (nationals of non-ED Member States). In this paper a number of changes to the Directive are suggested in order to make it into a more effective tool in the fight against racism and racial and ethnic origin discrimination.
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