The President of the European Commission The European Commission The Berlaymont Building Rue de la Loi 200, 1049 Bruxelles Brussels, 27 July 2017 Dear Mr President, As a Group Leader in the European Parliament, an institution whose motto is ‘united in diversity’, I find the lack of racial and ethnic diversity within the European institutions deeply concerning. Since I became an MEP in 2005, I have seen very little progress in terms of representation of the black and minority ethnic (BME) communities within the institutions, with representation of staff and members, falling far below what is representative of BME communities in many of the Member States which we represent. Whilst the UK may be leaving the European Union, my fear is that with its departure, we will see a far diminished BME representation here in the Parliament and elsewhere in the European Union institutions. We as institutions are best served by reflecting the diversity which exists in our own society. A diversity of views, religions, ethnicities, gender, and sexuality, increases tolerance, makes for more inclusive policy-making, and makes us more representative of our citizens. Therefore, I was highly concerned to see that the Commission's recent announcement on diversity failed to tackle the lack of ethnic and racial diversity within EU institutions. I also understand that whilst the European Commission is very prescriptive on the kind of data it wishes Member States to collect regarding equality, amongst its own 33,000 staffers, the European Commission collects no data at all regarding BME communities. We need only look at the Commission College, and amongst senior staff at the European Commission to see the lack of representation of officials from BME communities in our institutions. I believe the best way to address this problem, is to hold a mirror up to our own reflection, and to collect, publish, analyse and discuss this data, in order to find a solution. However, that solution mustn’t be found in arbitrary quotas and tokenism, this is not the way to achieve real representation, fairness, and equality. Instead, we should be doing more to ensure that people from all economic, social, and ethnic backgrounds are able to access skills training, education, advertising of posts, the application process, and consequently, employment in our institutions. The representation of MEPs and staff from BME communities in the European Parliament by the ECR Group is something I have been particularly proud of during my time as ECR Group Leader, but I believe we all must seek to do more, and therefore, I feel I must write to you regarding this issue. I call on you to do everything within your powers to look into this matter, and to make sure that your policies on equality also include a commitment to more racial and ethnic diversity. I will do all I can to work alongside you to achieve this goal. ECR Group Leader Syed Kamall MEP. .