The FRA survey covers 2024 and involved 10 member states, including Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, and Spain, as well as three other accession countries: Albania, North Macedonia, and Serbia.

According to the FRA, discrimination levels decreased between 2021 (the time of the previous survey) and 2024 in Greece and Serbia and increased in the Czech Republic, France, Ireland, Macedonia, and Portugal.

"Discrimination rates reached their highest levels in Ireland (for Roma and nomads), Italy, and Portugal," the report states.

For the report, 422 Portuguese Roma were interviewed, and 63% said they felt discriminated against in the 12 months prior to the survey, placing the country with the highest percentage. This figure represents a one percentage point increase compared to the 2021 survey, but a 16 percentage point jump compared to the 2016 survey.

Following Portugal are Ireland and Italy, two countries where 60% of Roma feel discriminated against. In the case of Ireland, the figure jumps to 75% when nomadic people were interviewed.

The European agency found that in Portugal, as in Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Serbia, Roma living in communities with fewer Roma feel less discrimination based on their origin than Roma living in neighborhoods where all or most of the population is Roma.

According to the FRA, regarding the issue of discrimination, "there has been virtually no change compared to previous surveys," and highlights that "on average, almost one in three Roma/nomads interviewed (31%) felt discriminated against based on their ethnic origin."

Portugal is also the country in the group with the highest percentage of Roma people who, in the 12 months prior to the survey, reported having experienced at least one form of harassment motivated by hatred of being Roma.

Of the 422 Roma interviewed, 48% said they had been victims of harassment, a figure similar to that in Italy (44%) and Ireland (41%), with the latter jumping to 50% for the nomads interviewed.

Another area in which Roma reported experiencing discrimination is in their job search, and Portugal appears to have a "remarkably high" discrimination rate, at 70%, surpassed only by Ireland (84%). Below that are Italy (66%) and Greece (61%).

The average for all countries shows that "in 2024, 36% of Roma/nomads over the age of 16 reported having experienced discrimination because of their Roma/nomad status when searching for work in the last 12 months."

According to the FRA, this confirms "a negative trend observed in 2021" and shows that "the spike in discrimination recorded in 2021 cannot be attributed solely to COVID-19."