On 23 June 2026, Professor Béatrice Fracchiolla, leader of ARENAS Work Package 5, took part in a meeting of the Parliamentary Alliance against Hate of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg, presenting her research on hate speech and verbal violence in public debate to members of the Alliance.
This invitation marks a significant milestone for the project: recognition, at the level of a major European institution, of the value that ARENAS research brings to the fight against hate speech and intolerance.
The Parliamentary Alliance against Hate was created to prevent racism and intolerance in Europe. It brings together parliamentarians from across the Council of Europe’s 46 member states who are committed to standing up to racism, intolerance and hatred, through hearings, conferences, thematic events, round tables and awareness-raising campaigns.
Professor Fracchiolla was invited to speak during a session dedicated to the theme “Combating Hate Speech in Public Debate,” She was asked to present her analysis of the normalisation of hate speech in public discourse, along with the levers available to help reverse this trend, followed by an open discussion with members of the Alliance.
Following her presentation and discussion, Professor Fracchiolla received feedback that “This very useful information, which we will be happy to share with our colleagues, especially those working with the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI).”
This response is a strong endorsement of ARENAS’s relevance beyond the academic sphere. It confirms that the project’s findings are seen as directly useful to the institutional actors responsible for shaping European policy on hate speech, and it opens the door to further exchange with ECRI, the Council of Europe’s own human rights monitoring body against racism and intolerance.
As ARENAS moves into its final year and its exploitation phase, engagement of this kind with policymakers is the kind of impact the project is designed to achieve. A direct exchange with members of PACE and the prospect of further sharing with ECRI extends ARENAS’s reach into the institutional processes that shape hate speech policy across 46 Council of Europe member states, reaching one of the project’s core target groups, policy makers, in the clearest possible way.