A black feminist analysis of the EU Anti-Racism Action Plan 2020-2025: advancing equality for racially minoritised women?

Abstract

This article presents a Black feminist analysis of the European Union Anti-Racism Action Plan 2020-2025 (ARAP), examining its capacity to advance equality for racially minoritised women. Using an adapted Critical Frame Analysis methodology, the study investigates the ARAP’s construction of problems and proposed solutions. The central question is whether the Plan, as a key component of EU equality policy, implements an intersectional approach capable of addressing complex forms of discrimination. The findings reveal that the ARAP fails to include the voices or provide visibility to racially minoritised women. Although it frames racism as a structural problem, its reliance on shallow, individual-level remedies ultimately undermines its potential. The paper concludes that while the ARAP introduces important rhetoric advances, their symbolic nature fails to provide the systemic policy changes required for the inclusion of racially minoritised women. To move beyond symbolic commitment, the EU must adopt a rights-based, intersectional approach to achieve transformative justice.