“Without the Jewish community, Europe will cease to exist,” European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans told participants of the first Annual Colloquium on Fundamental Rights organized by the EU Commission.

''Europeans leaving Europe, today's Europe, because they no longer see, as Jews, a future for themselves here,'' he acknowledged.

Addressing the opening of the two-day conference in Brussels, which focuses on preventing and combating anti-Semitic an anti-Muslim hatred in Europe, Timmermans warned that ‘’Anti-Semitism, if left unchallenged will pose a great problem to our society.”

''Anti-Semitism is not just terrible for the Jewish community, it is like a fever in an infected body, it points at a much wider problem. Anti-Semitism left unchallenged will create a much, much bigger problem in any society, that is what European history teaches us. So tackling antisemitism is an essential operation to save what we cherish in our society,'' he added.

He continued, ''The fact that today, in Europe, anti-Semitism is still a reality, and that it is in fact on the rise, old anti-Semitism that we have known for centuries, and new antisemitism, that sometimes tries to hide itself behind anti-Zionism – is something we need to confront. I don't want European children to grow up with police at their school gates, it is a dark, dark stain on our collective conscience.''

Timmermans also announced a concrete action as he will himself take the position of EU Envoy on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, within the framework of his current charge at the EU Commission.

''EU Commissioner Jourova (responsible for Justice) and I have decided that we will designate, within the Commission, two coordinators with specific responsibility for following issues relating to one, anti-Semitism and the other, Islamophobia,'' he said.

One coordinator will be the ''contact point'' on issues relating to anti-Semitism, another coordinator the ''point of contact'' for issues related to Islamophobia. ''These two persons within our services will have direct access to me. So whatever you say to them lands on my desk immediately. I want to be in direct control of this I will be your envoy if you want to call it that,'' Timmermans explained.

The announcement comes as a recent report of the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) of anti-Semitic incidents in 2014, once again demonstrated a substantial rise in hate attacks on Jews across the continent. In France, the number of incidents more than doubled from 423 attacks in 2013 to 851 in 2014.

The report notes that “anti-Semitic and intolerant attitudes can lead to behaviour punishable by law, but anti-Semitism needs to be countered beyond the criminal justice system perspective.

Two-thirds of respondents to FRA’s survey on Jewish people’s experiences and perceptions of anti-Semitism consider it to be a problem in their country, and 76 % believe that during the past five years anti-Semitism has increased in the country where they live.”