Newsletters

For this year's Diversity Month, the Diversity Charter Cyprus co-organised three main activities at national level.

Two events promoted the values and benefits of diversity and inclusion in the corporate world, and society! The Bulgarian Diversity Charter, launched in 2020 as a joint initiative of the Centre for the Study of Democracy and the Bulgarian Business Leaders Forum, was pleased to join festivities across Europe marking EU Diversity Month in 2022.

The 2023 Access City Award competition is now open for applications! Since 2010, this award recognises cities that are making significant efforts to become more accessible for persons with disabilities and have plans for further improvement.

This edition of our Newsletter is dedicated to the celebrations of the European Diversity Month 2022 and the first edition of the European Capitals of Diversity and Inclusion Award in the first half of 2022. Here you can find all information about these initiatives, official launch events as well as examples of various events organised by the Diversity Charters.

9 June 2022 - Under the European Education Area Strategic Framework, the European Commission organised its fifth meeting of the Working Group on Equality and Values. Pascale Falek, Policy Officer in the office of the Coordinator on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life, presented the EU Antisemitism Strategy during the panel discussion on 'EU non-discrimination policy instruments'.

7 June 2022 - Katharina von Schnurbein, European Commission Coordinator on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life, payed a visit to Bremen to present the EU Antisemitism Strategy to deputies of the Parliament and the public.

06 June 2022 - Vice-President for Promoting our European Way of Life, Margaritis Schinas, met with American Jewish Committee CEO, David Harris, during his visit to New York. They reinforced their commitment to work together in order to win the war against antisemitism in Europe and internationally.

1-2 June 2022 - The second meeting of the Working Group on the implementation of the EU Strategy on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life, that took place in Brussels, opened with a video message from Vice-President for Promoting our European Way of Life, Margaritis Schinas. The Working Group was chaired by Katharina von Schnurbein, European Commission Coordinator on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life.

19 May 2022 - In order to raise awareness and facilitate communication between law enforcement agencies and the Jewish communities in Berlin to improve the response to antisemitic hate crimes and address the communities’ security needs, OSCE-ODIHR organised a conference in Berlin, attended by Wester Meijdam, Policy Officer in the office of the European Commission Coordinator on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life.

31 May 2022 - As part of the World Jewish Congress Ronald S. Lauder Fellowship Diplomacy Summit, Pascale Falek, Policy Officer, presented the EU Antisemitism Strategy and held exchange of views on various topics of interest for young Jews across the world, including fighting antisemitism online, ensuring Holocaust education, EU-Israel relation and preventing and fighting all forms of antisemitic manifestations globally. The 40 young activists were from the United States, Europe, South Africa, Canada and South America.

30 May 2022 - For her outstanding example of civic involvement for a tolerant Europe and continuous solidarity with the Jewish community, the Conference of European Rabbis bestowed their prestigious Rabbi Moshe Rosen Prize upon Katharina von Schnurbein, European Commission Coordinator on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life.

18 - 19 May 2022 - Given the rise of antisemitic incidents, Austria invited to the 'European Conference on Antisemitism' Member States to unite their forces to not only denounce the scourge of antisemitism, but also to aim at developing a standardized methodology for recording of antisemitic incidents. This is one of the actions featured in the EU Strategy on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life.

11 May 2022 - As Chairperson of the jury, Ms. von Schnurbein presented the main prize of the newly established Austrian Simon Wiesenthal Prize (15.000 Euro) to four contemporary witnesses: Lily Ebert, Zwi Nigal, Karl Pfeifer and Liliana Segre, to honour their life's work. All of them have engaged with young people in sharing their testimony, and contributed in an extraordinary way to education and remembrance of the Shoah.

A guide on 'Online Antisemitism: A Toolkit for Civil Society' was published by B’nai B’rith International and Institute for Strategic Dialogue in partnership with UNESCO, with the aim to build capacity among civil society to tackle the threat of online antisemitism. The guide provides an overview of the online antisemitism threat landscape, a summary of existing policy responses on international and national levels across a range of European contexts, and a broad set of recommendations for civil society engagement with governments, platforms and wider communities to address this challenge

The National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism invites individuals and groups from civil society to submit an entry for the Simon Wiesenthal Prize 2022. Candidates’ work and activities must focus on and be characterised by outstanding civic engagement to combat antisemitism and/or promote Holocaust education.

What a successful month of May it has been! Not only did we celebrate an exciting kick-off in Brussels for the third European Diversity Month, in Germany the month was also crowned by a big anniversary celebration of the 10th German Diversity Day on 31 May.

27 April 2022 - On the occasion of Yom HaShoah, European Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli took part in the commemoration event organised by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) and Zikaron BaSalon.

3 May 2022 - As part of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, the Canadian Taskforce to Combat Online Antisemitism held a Human Rights Talks with Katharina von Schnurbein. In the podcast, the Coordinator discussed about current trends in online and offline antisemitism, Holocaust denial and distortion, and looked into how best to tackle this at European and global level.

23 April 2022 - The Commission welcomes the swift political agreement reached between the European Parliament and EU Member States on the proposal on the Digital Services Act (DSA), proposed by the Commission in December 2020.

The EU Diversity Month honours efforts by organisations to help build equal and inclusive environments for the benefit of all. The theme of this year’s Diversity Month is building bridges.