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Several dozen European Parliament members, EU officials, and civil society representatives convened on Wednesday for a breakfast roundtable forum in Brussels, Belgium, organized by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM).
The “Combating Antisemitism in Europe by Confronting Extremism” event, the first-of-its-kind held by CAM in Europe, was led by CAM Director of European Affairs Shannon Seban.
Speakers included: Austrian MEP Lukas Mandl, Vice Chair of the European Parliament’s Working Group Against Antisemitism (WGAS); Saad Amrani, Belgian Federal Police Chief Commissioner and Counter-Terrorism Expert; and Katharina von Schnurbein, European Commission Coordinator on Combating Antisemitism and Fostering Jewish Life.
The forum also featured open discussion and question-and-answer opportunities.
Among the participants were Dutch MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen and Spanish MEP Rosa Estaràs Ferragut, both long-standing advocates for stronger parliamentary measures against hate and extremism.
“Confronting antisemitism requires confronting extremism head-on,” Seban said. “These two phenomena are not parallel problems — they are deeply intertwined, almost symbiotic.”
“Antisemitism is rarely ‘spontaneous,'” she explained. “It is weaponized by extremist ideologies as a unifying glue, a recruitment tool, and a propaganda weapon. Whether it’s Islamist networks glorifying violence under the banner of ‘resistance’ and portraying Jews as eternal enemies, far-left conspiratorial currents that repackage medieval tropes as ‘anti-imperialism’ or ‘anti-Zionism,’ or far-right supremacists who see Jews as puppet-masters of global chaos –antisemitism serves as the common denominator across the extremist spectrum.”
“If we are serious about combating antisemitism in Europe, we must also be serious about confronting the ecosystems of extremism that enable it,” Seban stated. “This requires clarity, courage, and cooperation — across institutions, across countries, and across sectors.”
“Today’s breakfast is an opportunity to exchange perspectives, share best practices, and strengthen that cooperation,” she added. “It is also an opportunity to reflect together on how Europe can respond more effectively to these intertwined challenges.”
In his remarks, Mandl called the fight against antisemitism “an everyday endeavor.”
“It is something everybody can teach the children,” he said. “It’s something everybody can do in the education system. It is an endeavor for each and everybody.”
Von Schnurbein emphasized that protecting Jewish life was inseparable from defending European democracy and shared values, and she highlighted the EU Strategy on Combating Antisemitism and Fostering Jewish Life she unveiled in 2021 and the importance of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism.
Amrani underscored the need to address not only online antisemitic content but also the broader atmosphere of street-level developing in communities. Furthermore, he urged heightened security measures, including the deployment of military resources, and tighter coordination between law enforcement, policymakers and civil society entities across Europe.
