Brussels Quietly Shelves Plan To Make ‘Hate Speech’ An EU-Wide Crime… But There’s A Catch

The European Commission plans to withdraw its proposal to make hate speech and hate crime EU-wide criminal offenses after the bid stalled in the Council of the EU, the Epoch Times reported.

The Commission announced the decision on Nov. 4, the Epoch Times said. It concerns an initiative unveiled in December 2021 to add hate speech and hate crime to the list of EU crimes in Article 83(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, alongside terrorism, human trafficking and cybercrime. Doing so required the unanimous approval of member states and the consent of the European Parliament, which would then have let the Commission set common minimum definitions and penalties across the bloc. Parliament backed the idea in January 2024 by 397 votes to 121, with 26 abstentions. The Council never reached the unanimity needed.

The Commission is considering a directive to combat online incitement to violence and hatred instead, the Epoch Times reported. Alliance Defending Freedom International said on Nov. 9 that incitement to violence is already a crime, while proposals aimed at “incitement to hatred” have been used in some countries to prosecute peaceful expression, and that the plan risks becoming “yet another tool to silence disfavored views and strengthen the [Digital Services Act's] online censorship regime.”

Jacob Mchangama and Natalie Alkiviadou, in a paper on the proposal, point to the Commission’s 2026-2030 Anti-Racism Strategy, which signals a possible initiative on online hate offenses under existing Article 83(1) categories such as computer crime. “Where unanimity failed, pursuing similar objectives through digital or computer-crime competences warrants scrutiny,” they write.

The rules already on the books are broad, with a 2008 Council framework requires member states to criminalize certain racist and xenophobic hate speech, and national laws diverge widely beyond that: Germany criminalizes incitement against groups defined by national, racial, religious or ethnic characteristics, while France’s Criminal Code and Press Freedom Act cover characteristics including sex, gender identity, sexual orientation and disability.

On platforms, the Commission announced updated hate speech guidelines under the Digital Services Act in January 2025, expecting participating platforms to review at least half of qualifying notices from monitoring organizations within 24 hours. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that month that Europe had introduced an “ever-increasing number of laws” that institutionalized censorship, and French MEP Virginie Joron has called the DSA a “Trojan horse for surveillance and control.”

Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset said in June that democracies need stronger legal responses to hate speech: “What we need is a strategy for democratic security. One where hate speech is met with the law.”