In EU law, the Racial Equality Directive (RED) prohibits discrimination on the grounds of racial or ethnic origin without defining them. However, their broad or narrow interpretation impacts on a wide array of issues ranging from material scope and the qualification of claims to data collection and positive action measures. Definitional puzzles and complexities, synergies and differences between the key terms await the clarification of these autonomous concepts 'by considering their usual meaning in everyday language, while also taking into account the context in which they occur and the purposes of the rules of which they are part'. This context is historical, social and political, which necessitates an inquiry into how such processes continuously reshape the meaning of legal terms. The thematic report on 'The meaning of racial or ethnic origin in EU law: between stereotypes and identities' conceives of the grounds as a single, composite and transversal conceptual category for the purposes of implementing European law. Composite means that, as a rule, racial or ethnic origin is comprised of constitutive characteristics that are at times protected separately 'in their own right'. Transversal refers to temporal and geographic contingency, thus focusing on the changes in the terms' meaning over time and space. While the interrogation of historical sources brings to the fore the unstable meaning of the word race, it simultaneously depicts racism as a global phenomenon that is motivated by deliberate political projects and results in often violent discriminatory action fuelled by ethnic prejudice. It shows variance in the trajectories of racism in different geographic locations - including differences between Britain and continental Europe, as well as Europe and the United States. Racism itself is a contested concept, taken to denote an ideology, as well as intentional practices. On the other hand, racist attitudes across localities differ. In Europe, most groups targeted by racism categorically reject race as a label. Still, racialisation as 'a process that ascribes physical and cultural differences to individuals and groups' is thriving. The abundance of terms and concepts applied to individuals and groups eligible for protection under the RED is overwhelming. Rather than cataloguing or classifying minorities as national, ethnic, racial, cultural, historic, territorial, linguistic, religious, ethno-religious, indigenous or racialised, the report describes the ways in which one can identify that less favourable treatment has been meted out on the grounds of racial or ethnic origin. It builds on the analysis of race making and the appropriation of racialised identities provided by social scientists.
