29 October 2025

Dear partners and colleagues,

It is a great pleasure to open this year’s gathering — the third in our collective journey to address the nexus between racism and health. I am grateful for our continuous collaboration with the European Public Health Alliance, and its Anti-discrimination and Health Equity Network organizations (DisQo Network).

Our partnership commenced in 2023 to analyse, raise awareness and address racism in health and racism’s impact on health. Our joint efforts have resulted in a series of recommendations submitted to the European Commission in the context of the 2026-2030 EU Anti-Racism Strategy elaboration. I am recognizing the impact of our efforts to open spaces for exchange on these topics with civil society, victims, academics and public officials.

I am pleased to count each year on the increasing support and collaboration with civil society and this year we are delighted to launch the third annual conference-workshop with PAD Belgium Observatory. Tomas de Jong from the European Public Health Alliance will present in greater detail the origins and outcome of our collaboration.

So, I will limit myself to recall that in the past two years,