It all depends what part of the EU and how you look.

For some EU perspective: last summer we traveled with a group of social dancers from Berlin to Pula in Croatia, going to an event at the coast.

Croatia joined Schengen in January 2023.

We had one couple in the group that where not "white". She is German but her parents are Vietnamese and he is from Syria. They're married, they have German citizenship.

They were the only ones from our group of ~20 people who got singled out and had their papers and luggage (!) checked. She looks Asian, he looks Middle-Eastern (oh, and he has a beard!).

That said, they just took 10mins longer to make it through the arrivals hall. They didn't get incarcerated.

However, the year before they were traveling to a dance event in Belgrade. That was was before they got married so he didn't have a German passport yet. He only had a Syrian passport and a residence permit for Germany/Schengen.

Serbia is not part of the EU. Usually such a mistake means they just send you back on the next flight. Happened to two friends of mine, both "white US citizens, who didn't also know this and were traveling to Belgrade from Switzerland two years before.

My Syrian friend however spent three days in a jail in cell with a dozen criminals before they let him fly back to Germany. Mind you, the event they went to was four days and he had a return ticket that could have been easily changed to the arrival day.

Racial profiling is everywhere. Also in the EU. And some EU countries are more "famous" for it, the Balkans e.g.

> Racial profiling is everywhere. Also in the EU. And some EU countries are more "famous" for it, the Balkans e.g.

Some countries are more "famous" for it, but that's really just a matter of perception and how it fits into an existing narrative, not based on actual evidence.

It's not like there's data showing that racial profiling is lower in France, Germany, and Sweden than it is in Eastern Europe.

I'd say racial profiling is probably around the same everywhere, but rule of law is not, and while you have a lot of corruption at the top level in France, bureaucratic processes makes it hard for low-level public servant to ignore said rule of law, which isn't the case in some Eastern European countries (i've heard that Romania made _huge_ improvement though, so maybe my only first-hand experience wouldn't happen these days anymore)

> For some EU perspective

> Serbia is not part of the EU

> Racial profiling is everywhere. Also in the EU.

I should have written "for some European perspective". Croatia and Serbia are both part of Europe.

I didn't want to imply this was anyhow tied to Brussels.

Not exactly entirely outside[1] the EU either though, having applied for membership in 2009 and receiving full candidacy status in 2012.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_of_Serbia_to_the_Eur...

It is entirely outside of the EU until it's a member country. Serbia doesn't have any special status like Switzerland or Norway that are closer to the EU even if they are not members, and anyway the leadership of Serbia is currently closer to Russia than to the EU.

Technically you're of course correct.

Though my point was that as someone who's moved into a EU country, it might not be entirely clear that it's not inside EU, given it's proximity and that they might have read about it in an EU context given its status.

Heck I'm in Norway and had to check to make sure I was right.

Of course, second time around there's no excuse.

That's Serbia man. There's a reason they're not in the Union. Starting up shit since 1914.