(Strasbourg) “In 2017, fear and animosity increased in European societies, mainly due to the extent of migration, religious extremism and terrorist attacks. The socio-economic state resulting from austerity in Europe has exacerbated such feelings, which have fuelled populism”, its rhetoric “unfailingly mixed with real or made-up hatred for foreigners and minorities”. This is a passage from the foreword of the Yearly Report of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (Ecri) of the Council of Europe, which has just been published. While in some countries “positive developments can be noticed” with “laws against hate crime and discrimination” or the establishment of “equality-supporting agencies”, “in several countries there is a tendency to see multiculturalism as a danger and to start debasing and dismissing human rights and their universal character”. The consequences, the Report goes on, are “the erosion of social cohesion and instigation to behave with hostility, discrimination, hatred, even abuse”. “Though we are aware of the problems that the European countries are going through”, the president of Ecri, Jean-Paul Lehners, said when the Report was issued, “we must encourage them to move on to more balanced, more evidence-based arguments that show the useful contribution made by a properly managed migration, above all the opportunities and resources that immigrants can provide”.