European Commission following up on France over interventions against Romani people [ROMEA]
A spokesperson for the European Commission told the French media yesterday that the Commission is carefully following the way in which French authorities are dissolving Romani people’s campsites and wants to ensure respect for guarantees against arbitrary deportation and discriminatory treatment. “Representatives of Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding are in contact with the French authorities to determine whether European regulations are being respected,” the spokesperson said.
Agence-France Presse quoted an unnamed representative of the Commission who said this was a “test of the new French Government”. “The Commission wants to verify France’s commitment to governing itself by the rules it has promulgated in its own legislation,” the representative said.
During the early morning hours of Thursday, French Police cleared a campsite near the northern town of Lille that was occupied by approximately 200 Romani people. The intervention followed a series of similar actions in Lyon and Paris. More Romani people who are Romanian citizens were also deported from Lyon.
Reding sharply criticized French President Nicolas Sarkozy two years ago for his deportations of Romani people who had come to France primarily from Bulgaria and Romania, which are also EU Member States. Under the threat of a court proceedings, France adopted guarantees in the end which Reding said would “protect EU citizens against arbitrary deportation and discriminatory treatment.”
The new Socialist-led government is continuing the policies of the previous right-wing cabinet. French Interior Minister Manuel Valls has ordered prefects to dissolve the campsites if court orders to dissolve them have been issued and to push for the Romani people’s return to their home countries. He has defended the interventions in recent days by saying they are legal and unavoidable because the camps pose a public health risk.
Approximately 20 000 Romani people live in France. Many of the deported Romani people who are Romanian citizens returned to France after being paid EUR 300 each to return to their home country. Valls said the Government will re-evaluate its policy regarding such financial support as well as its restrictions on Romanian citizens working in France.
Czech Press Agency, translated by Gwendolyn Albert
ROMEA
US ambassador calls for Czech action to end Roma exclusion, discrimination
The US ambassador to the Czech Republic, a former top advisor to President Barack Obama, has made a public all for Czechs to do more for the Roma (“Gypsy”) minority.
“Roma have for a long time faced problems on the margins of society in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Europe. The unequal access to education and job opportunities have further worsened their situation,” Amb. Norman Eisen wrote in an commentary published in Monday’s issue of the business dailyHospodářské noviny.
“If there is one group of people denied basic rights and opportunities that damages the whole of society,” Eisen continued. “I appeal to the Czech government to take more effective measures regarding the Roma. Success will only come when the public administration at all levels seeks to bring the Roma from the fringes of society.”
The comments follow a critical assessment of the Czech Republic in the US Department of State’s annual evaluation of human rights worldwide, published last week. “During the year, societal discrimination against the country’s Romani population was a serious problem and human rights observers criticized the government’s efforts to overcome it as inadequate.” The report also attacked prison overcrowding, corruption, judicial shortcomings, human trafficking, and discrimination against labor unions and migrant workers.
The country report highlighted what it called the almost non-existent role of Roma in public life: “Few of the country’s estimated 200,000 Roma were integrated into political life. No Roma were members of parliament, had cabinet portfolios, or sat on the Supreme Court. Some Roma were appointed to national and regional advisory councils dealing with Romani affairs.”
The high level of underlying tension between Roma and the majority population, which led to a wave of anti-Roma protests in deprived parts of northern Bohemia last summer after a series of incidents, were also covered in the report. “Throughout the year, extremists targeted Romani neighborhoods as venues for their protests and occasional violence. Police investigated several incidents of torches or Molotov cocktails being thrown at Romani houses. Extremist groups also marched through Romani areas carrying torches and chanting slogans.”
The overwhelming negative tone of the media towards the Roma community, in some cases printing totally fictitious stories which tarnished the community, or, as recently in the case of a Břeclav boy who blamed Roma for attacking himwhen he injured himself falling over, jumping on an anti-Roma bandwagon, was also highlighted. “The national media gave disproportionate coverage to crime and acts of violence committed by Roma compared with similar behavior on the part of the majority population or other minorities,” the State Department report said.
Local politicians have meanwhile sought to profit from taking extreme anti-Roma stances, it said. “Some mainstream politicians have been outspoken in their criticism of Romani communities. Their statements often vilified the Romani minority, blaming it for community problems and assigning collective guilt for crimes. Some politicians called for municipalities to move Romani residents to the outskirts of town into what is often substandard housing, ban alcohol in areas with high Romani populations, and limit residency options for Roma who commit multiple minor crimes.”
In the meantime, in spite of frequent international demands, including from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for more efforts to harness the abilities of the Roma community, they are often forced to live on social support and state hands outs because of job market discrimination. “An estimated 57 percent of Roma were unemployed. In areas with a high percentage of Romani residents, unemployment among Roma was close to 90 percent according to the Agency for Social Inclusion in Roma Localities,” the report said.
Roma children are still frequently offered the most basic education, often being placed as a matter of course in school’s for children with learning difficulties although Czech authorities maintain that this practice has now stopped. They are almost entirely absent from the upper ranks of education.
“The US has its own bad experience with unfairness in education. Our own successes and failures could be an inspiration for those who seek to deal with the issues in a similar way,” Eisen commented in his opinion piece.
Eisen served for nearly two years in the White House as Special Assistant to the President and as Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform, being given the informal title of Barack Obama’s “ethics czar.” He wasconfirmed as US ambassador in mid-December in the face of moves by Republicans in the Senate to block the move
The Nevo Baro Porrajmos?
I’ve thought about this a great deal recently, but a new friend has prompted me to write this here.
All the news reports I see—so many from Europe—all pointing at the Roma as such an inconvenience. There is talk of internment camps, ghettos, “removal”, there are renewed evictions to “container settlements”. There is massive pressure in regions of Europe such as France, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovakia, to find an “answer” to the “Roma problem”.
All words we’ve heard before, decades ago.
Phrases like “rising aversion to Roma” plaster the newspapers and send shivers down my spine.
But, no one is listening.
In the US they post headlines about “gypsy thieves” who swing through your precious suburban tranquility in the spring and rip off old grandmas. They write articles about bands and clothing lines simultaneously painting us as thieves and vagabonds, as well as romanticized fairyesque beings who don’t really exist.
Our language is fading out.
Our customs are fading out.
WE are fading out…
but apparently not fast enough. Not fast enough for the politicians in Europe who don’t want to deal with us. Recently two men luckily were freed, they faced jail time for simply trying to protect Roma human rights in Italy. In Serbia families have been shipped from a slum into a “container settlement”. It is literally what it sounds like—old shipping containers where Roma are now forced to live.
There are slums on trash dumps, toxic dumps, next to factories, in areas heavily polluted with heavy metals.
… and no one cares. No one helps us. They let us rot—in hopes that what? We will die without direct intervention. France suggested perhaps they should create internment camps (sound familiar?)
It scares me. I am literally terrified when I think of this and what are we all doing about it?
Nothing!
We sit and fight over who is more of a true Roma, who follows Romanipen stronger, who wears traditional clothes, who does this or that, who has lighter-skin or darker-skin, who is American or who is EU. Seriously? What about our brothers and sisters who are living in fear and bad health situations, who have to beg for food, who have no access to education or health care…
What are we doing? Arguing on the internet about little privileged hipsters who just don’t even care? Why are we wasting our time on these people? We need to be focusing on challenging the mainstream shit like the shows on TLC or other misrepresentation.
Tumblr is not enough.
We need to take this much bigger.
Or, perhaps, there will be a nevo baro Porajmos.
“Open your mind and speak out against racism” - European-wide Action Week against Racism
The European-wide Action Week against Racism began on 17 March around Europe and will run until 25 March. This year the slogan is “Open your mind and speak out against racism”. The Czech Helsinki Committee has issued a press release on this event, which is organized by the international UNITED network and supported by the various organizations around Europe conducting the anti-racism campaign.
21 March was established as the International Day for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by the General Assembly of the United Nations in response to the murder of 69 anti-apartheid demonstrators in Sharpeville, South Africa, in 1960.
Ever since, thousands of people in Europe and around the world have been actively engaged on that day every year on behalf of equality, tolerance, and the celebration of diversity. The aim of the campaign is to draw attention to the issue of racism from an NGO perspective at local, national, and European level.
The Czech Helsinki Committee joined this year’s campaign against racism in order to draw attention to the rise in hatred and intolerance in the Czech Republic. “We will hold a press conference on 21 March at which we will release the ENAR (European Network against Racism) Shadow Report on the state of racism in the Czech Republic and in Europe. The report on the Czech Republic was researched by the Czech Helsinki Committee and authored by Selma Muhič Dizdarevič and František Valeš,” said Monika Bunžová, Second Vice-Chair of the ENAR Foundation (see http://www.enarfoundation.eu/about/article/board).
ENAR publishes a national Shadow Report on each EU Member State every year, as well as an EU-wide report reflecting on the phenomenon of racism. The new report will map the period between January 2010 and March 2011.
The director of the Czech Helsinki Committee, Markéta Kovaříková, said: “We have designed an exhibition of photographs taken at neo-Nazi demonstrations throughout the Czech Republic. The photographs were provided to us by the Tolerance a občanská společnost (Tolerance and Civil Society) civic association, which has long been involved in monitoring neo-Nazi activities in the Czech Republic. The exhibition will run from 19 – 20 April at the Sicily café on Senovážné nám. 2, Prague 1. We are also planning to disseminate an anti-racist video clip through social networks that was produced by our partner organization, ROMEA, and can be seen on our website and on Facebook.”
Part of the International Day against Racism will include the LUCERNA PROTI RASISMU (LUCERNA AGAINST RACISM) program at the Lucerna complex in Prague. The program was designed by the OPONA public benefit company.
You will not be able to avoid the topic of racism at the Lucerna on Wednesday. In the afternoon there will be a screening of the film “The Last Flight of Peter Ginz”, which reminds viewers of where social engineering has led us in the past and how it has blemished people’s life stories. The screening is connected with an exhibition, entitled “Exhibition against Racism”, which links the past to the present through the history of the Jewish and Romani minorities on Czech territory and investigates the media image of Romani people in detail. The texts on the media section of the exhibition were authored by František Kostlán of the ROMEA civic association.
The day will end with a concert against racism. Ester Kočičková and her “Aryan folk music” - with the catchy refrain “It’s good they always pour us blondes a drink” (“Ještěže nám blondýnám vždycky nalejou”) - will perform with the Tap Tap band. Tonya Graves will also sing. The evening will be closed by Radio 1’s Gadjo.cz and a live show by Jam Sound System. For more information please see www.lucernaprotirasismu.cz
Catherine Bearder on Human Trafficking in the Roma Community - Speech in Parliament
Speaking in a debate in the European Parliament on the Roma community in member states, Catherine Bearder choose to remind the Commission of the scale of human trafficking that exists within the community and that this cannot be tackled until they are fully welcomed into the European family.
Catherine’s speech was: ”I want to draw attention to the topic of human trafficking within the Roma Community.
The poverty of the Roma and the fact that they are marginalised, directly feed into the trafficking of large numbers of their population around Europe.
This begins a cycle of crime that continues with trafficked victims used for crimes ranging from pick-pocketing, prostitution and large-scale benefit fraud.
The scale of this problem was highlighted by the EU Joint Investigation, Operation Golf. A raid on just ONE Roma village last year saw the arrest of 26 people responsible for the trafficking of 272 Roma children - from just one village!
The sooner the Roma community are accepted and welcomed fully into their communities and given opportunities to become financial participants in society, the sooner they will be able to resist the predatory behaviour of the gangs that traffic them. The EU has much to do and a duty to ensure their rights are upheld.”
Time to get robust on racism →
Bernard Rorke
The December deadline for member states to deliver their national Roma integration strategies is looming. The stakes are high, and time is short for governments to deliver on the Commission’s request for targeted national strategies in health, housing, education, and employment to address the exclusion and discrimination faced by the Roma – Europe’s youngest, largest and most disadvantaged ethnic minority with a population similar to that of Greece.
When the European Council endorsed the EU Framework for Roma this June, Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship, called it “a huge step forward for millions of Roma around Europe” and a strong signal from the EU that “the exclusion of the Roma is not compatible with our societal values and our economic model”.
As the European economic model takes an unprecedented battering, the consensus around ‘societal values’ is looking badly bruised in a climate of rising intolerance, increasing intimidation and sometimes deadly violence against Roma in countries such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Anti-Gypsyism has become a vote-catcher for far-right parties, and anti-Roma prejudice remains largely unchecked by the political mainstream across many member states of the EU.
Social exclusion is not just ethically repugnant; it is also economic folly. The Commission found that a lack of capacity to absorb EU funds for Roma integration is compounded by weak inclusion strategies and bottlenecks at the national, regional, and local levels. The Commission has pledged to “surmount capacity issues” and work with member states “to address new needs, simplify delivery, and speed up the implementation of priorities”. This would mark a welcome departure for countries with dismal absorption capacity, such as Bulgaria and Romania where the percentage of new entrants to the labour market of Roma origin is estimated at 23% and 21% respectively.
The vast majority of working-age Roma lack sufficient education to participate successfully in the labour market. According to the World Bank, the result is that European countries lose billions of euros in productivity and in fiscal contributions to the governments. In terms of inclusive, growth bridging the education gap is ‘the economically smart choice to make’.
Smart choices seem thin on the ground this week, a week that marks the fourth anniversary of a European Court of Human Rights ruling against the Czech Republic that declared that segregating Roma children into ‘special schools’ is unlawful and discriminatory. Four years on, there has been little change, segregation persists, and tens of thousands of Roma children in EU member states continue to be shunted into segregated schools in defiance of the court’s ruling.
Social inclusion strategies cannot succeed without resolute action to combat such racism and discrimination. Put simply, prejudice unchecked will derail progress. The European Parliament has called on the European Commission to link social inclusion priorities to a clear set of objectives that included protection of citizens against discrimination in all fields of life; promotion of social dialogue between Roma and non-Roma to combat racism and xenophobia; and for the Commission, as guardian of the treaties, to ensure full implementation of legislation and appropriate sanctions against racially motivated crimes. The linkage somehow got lost along the way between first and final drafts, but was reaffirmed in the Council conclusions in June, which invited the Commission to pursue rigorous monitoring to combat discrimination based on ethnic origin.
The Commission is entirely correct in its insistence that the primary responsibility for safeguarding the rights, well-being, and security of citizens lies with national governments. However, if the EU Framework for Roma is to live up to its billing as ‘10 years to make a difference’, then the Commission must do everything within its remit and competences to take up the Council’s invitation to get robust on racism. It should signal to member states that nothing less than zero tolerance will suffice when it comes to anti-Gypsyism and all forms of discrimination against Roma.
(source: European Voice)
Roma strategy: MEPs call for real action →
MEPs urge Member States to tackle discrimination of Roma people ©MaxPPP
MEPs criticized the European Commission for not going far enough to combat discrimination against Roma people and urged member states to prepare their national Roma strategies by the end of 2011 in a debate on 16 November in Strasbourg.
In view of recent anti-Roma incidents in several EU countries, MEPs voiced concerns that the Commission is not doing enough to address the issue.
Talking about the EU’s Roma strategy, Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou promised that it will not remain an empty paper and will complement existing EU legislation on anti-discrimination.
Speaking on behalf of the Council, Elzbieta Radziszewska, Poland’s Secretary of State for Equality, called it a shame that many of Europe’s 10 million Roma people live in extreme poverty and isolation. “The Council will provide political support for member states to prepare their national strategies,” she said.
“Adopting a Roma strategy is just the beginning,” said Hungarian Christian Democrat Lívia Járóka, who drafted an EP report the subject earlier this year. “Complex programmes will be needed to achieve results.”
Romanian Liberal Renate Weber urged the Commission to enforce fundamental rights and considers the expulsion of Roma from several member states as unacceptable, while Italian EFD member Mara Bizzotto was critical of the Roma strategy, calling it hypocritical. She wondered why the EU spends money on inclusion if the Roma population has no intention of integrating into the societies in which they live.
Italian EPP member Roberta Angelilli focused on the situation of Roma minors and cited a survey which said only 40% of Roma children attend primary school and 10% receive secondary education. The EU average for primary school attendance is 97%.
Austrian Socialist Hannes Swoboda complained that there is a lack of exact information on national strategies and on how EU funds are used to improve the lives of the Roma community.
The Commission adopted an EU Roma strategy in April 2011, which focuses on improving access to housing, education, jobs and healthcare.
EU countries have until the end of 2011 to submit strategies setting out how they want to achieve these goals.
Ms Vassiliou said that after the Commission has evaluated the national strategies, it will report to the EP on its findings early 2012.
Fact Box: Roma in Europe
- 10-12 mln Roma in Europe (6 mln in EU)
- Roma populations: Romania 1.85 mln, Bulgaria 750,000, Spain 725,000, Hungary 700 000
- Proportion of Roma population: Bulgaria 10.3%; Slovakia 9.17%; Romania 8.32%; Hungary 7.05%
- (source: EC)
(source: European Parliament)
6th Meeting of the European Platform →
6th Meeting of the European Platform for Roma Inclusion 17th-18th November, 2011, Brussels hemes of 6th Meeting: Many Roma people in Europe face discrimination and social exclusion in their daily lives. They are marginalised and live in very poor socio-economic conditions.
The European Platform for Roma Inclusion:
The European Platform for Roma inclusion (or European Roma Platform) was created to support policy developments for Roma integration and stimulate exchanges and coordination among Member States, international organisations and Roma civil society.
Roma integration: an EU Framework for national strategies
In order to make a tangible difference to the lives of Roma people, the European Commission has proposed an EU Framework for national Roma integration strategies. This initiative invites Member States to present national Roma integration strategies to the Commission by the end of December 2011. In May and June 2011, Member States agreed to commit to this process.
The 6th Platform meeting:
This meeting is the first meeting of the European Roma Platform following its recent reform aimed at strengthening its role and functioning. It will provide a unique opportunity for discussing the EU Framework for national Roma integration strategies before Member States are expected to present their strategies to the Commission.
The meeting will combine workshops and plenary sessions to provide all stakeholders - Member States, EU institutions, international organisations and civil society organisations - with adequate space for exchanges and joint reflection.
Participation in the meeting of the European Platform for Roma Inclusion is upon invitation only.
Background:
The European Platform for Roma Inclusion was set up following the General Affairs Council Conclusions of 8th December 2008 which called upon the Commission “to organise, initially, an exchange of good practice and experience between the Member States in the sphere of the Roma, provide analytical support and stimulate cooperation between all parties concerned by Roma issues, including the organisations representing Roma, in the context of an integrated European platform”.More on the Platform process
The Commission’s Communication on an EU Framework for national Roma integration strategies by 2020 COM(2011)173 announces a reform of this mechanism, so as to strengthen its role and functioning. The meeting on 17th-18th November 2011 will be the sixth meeting of the Platform, but the first since this reform.
The aim of the meeting is to discuss the contribution from each stakeholder in making the EU Framework for national Roma integration strategies a success. It will provide the unique opportunity for discussing this issue before Member States are expected to present their strategies to the Commission.
In order to strengthen the outputs from the Platform, this meeting will include specific workshops for each stakeholder focusing upon the input from each in the Framework process: Member States will discuss among themselves of the challenges and successes in preparing their national strategies; civil society organisations will discuss how they can provide a coordinated input in the Framework’s process; and international organisations will exchange views on their contribution and possible synergies. A plenary session on the second day of the event will allow for workshops’ discussions to be shared and all views to be exchanged.
PDF file of Roma Platform 2011 programme
(source: Kethano Drom)
Democracy Live - Questions on Roma rights →
Click through to watch the video
Roma people are the “least understood” of the EU’s minority groups and face unacceptable levels of discrimination, Education and Culture Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou has said.
Responding to questions from the European Parliament on discrimination against Roma people on 16 November 2011, Mrs Vassiliou urged MEPs “to really help the Roma people to take full part in our lives and in our communities”.
There are EU guidelines for member states on including Roma people in education, employment, health and housing.
By the end of 2011, member state governments are to submit national strategies to the Commission specifying how they plan to achieve these goals.
Mrs Vassiliou noted that the guidelines had been welcomed by all member states, but said that their commitment to them had now reached a “moment of truth”.
The Commission had redoubled its efforts to make sure the guidelines were implemented, she said, for example by training 600 Roma mediators to work with local communities and try to ensure that Roma people are able to “enjoy their fundamental rights”.
“The involvement of civil society and the active participation of Roma people… are crucial,” she stressed.
For the Council, Elzbieta Radziszewska, told MEPs that “those of us who have lived through the holocaust, their children, and their grandchildren, are watching with horror” at the treatment of Roma people today.
“They are puzzled by the extent of violence,” she added. “We must not treat these issues lightly.”
Ms Radziszewska urged MEPs to “ensure that the human rights of minorities are respected”.
But German centre-right MEP Bernd Posselt accused both the Council and the Commission of making “empty statements”.
“Rhetoric alone will not do - we need to take practical steps and move away from just words,” he concluded.
(source: BBC)
EU members urged to develop Roma integration strategies →
Ivaylo Spasov
Video available on source site
In 2010 France and Italy expelled thousands of Roma squatters back to Bulgaria and Romania. This infuriated Vivane Reding, EU Commissioner for Justice, Human Rights and Citizenship.
She compared it with World-War II persecutions, and urged EU members to draw effective Roma inclusion programs by the end of 2011.
The deadline is near, and Bulgaria was the first to present its strategy.
But during the 2007-2013 budget period EU members already had 350 billion euro at their disposal, for cohesion policies alone. And they didn’t do much to alleviate Roma’s exclusion.
The World Bank was a founding international partner to the so-called “Decade of Roma Inclusion” initiative. It was launched namely in Sofia in 2005, and lasts until 2015. It’s already half way through, but no tangible results have been produced so far.
In addition to help providing access to those key areas, the Decade Action Plan, signed by 12 European countries with the largest Roma minorities, is also supposed to address core issues, such as poverty, discrimination, and gender mainstreaming. According to experts, these will persist until politicians realize the true nature of the problem.
Bulgaria already had 7 programs for Roma inclusion, and they all failed. Tahir believes the current one will follow their path.
This is Bulgaria’s National Strategy for the Integration of Roma - a lot of tables, a lot of charts… But what delegates to this conference urge is a transition from paper to real-life actions.
But specialists believe the interests and rights of 12 million Roma, the largest ethnic minority in Europe, will never be protected properly, as long as there is only one single member of European Parliament who is of Roma origin.
(source: PressTV)
Hindus seek EU intervention at mounting anti-Roma sentiment in Bulgaria →
02/10/2011 – Hindus have expressed serious concern at the rising anti-Roma sentiment in some quarters of Bulgaria.
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, asked the European Union (EU) to urgently intervene and protect the human rights and freedoms of Roma (Gypsies) in Bulgaria.
Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, argued that Roma had always been used as a scapegoat in history, and last week also reportedly saw number of anti-Roma rallies and violence in Bulgaria blaming Roma for almost all the major problems faced by the country like corruption, crime, etc., and asking for dismantling of their settlements. Language of hatred did not belong in a civilized and moral world and must be put to an end, Zed said and added that all Bulgarians, Roma or non-Roma, should be treated equally and fairly.
Rajan Zed stressed that Roma upliftment should be the first priority in Bulgaria and Europe as their maltreatment was a dark stain on the face of the continent. It was simply immoral to continue staying apathetic and silent spectator ignoring Roma plight, who reportedly regularly faced social exclusion, racism, substandard education, hostility, joblessness, rampant illness, inadequate housing, lower life expectancy, unrest, living on desperate margins, stereotypes, mistrust, rights violations, discrimination, marginalization, appalling living conditions, prejudice, human rights abuse, etc.
Commissioner for Human Rights of Council of Europe Thomas Hammarberg visited a Roma settlement in the Republika district of Sofia (Bulgaria) in the past, where he assessed the living conditions as inhumane. “No one should live in these conditions in today’s Europe”, he declared.
Bulgaria is known for its long sandy Black Sea Coast, multicolored monasteries, footballer Hristo Stoichkov, poet Peyo Yavorov, etc. Georgi Parvanov is President and Boiko Borisov is Prime Minister of Bulgaria, which boasts of nine UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
(source: Roma Buzz Monitor)
Roma Question, EU Answer
Michael J. Jordan
After years of debate, the EU unveils its first high-level policy document on the Roma. Now it’s up to national governments to fill in the outline.
BUDAPEST | Angela Kocze has been a firsthand witness to all the calamities that have befallen her fellow Roma over the two decades since Central and Eastern Europe rid itself of communist rule.
Nevertheless, Kocze is the rare voice to somehow muster “cautious optimism” about the first unified European Union policy to target the plight of the Roma, Europe’s largest, most-despised and most-marginalized minority.
She even swallows a grain of salt in that it’s Hungary, her homeland, that claims the new EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies as a crowning achievement of its just-concluded stint in the presidency of the European Union. Budapest can only hope Western partners will look more kindly upon its six-month reign, which was tainted from the outset by Hungary’s suffocating new media law.
Kocze, a research fellow in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for National and Ethnic Minorities, has for years heard empty – even insincere – promises from Budapest to do something about the subpar education, employment, health, and housing from which many Roma are unable to escape.
Meanwhile, the country has seen the dramatic rise of an openly racist, far-right party. In a not-entirely-unrelated development, nine Hungarian Roma have been murdered in suspected racist attacks, including a man and his 5-year-old son shot as they fled their fire-bombed home.
EU Commissioner: Roma Exclusion ‘Getting Worse’
Living conditions for Europe’s Roma are worsening and all European states, including western ones, are responsible for changing that, says László Andor, the EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.
EU Commission not concerned by discriminatory treatment of Roma beggars in Luxembourg
11 July 2011 – Beginning of 2010, Chachipe received information about a discriminatory campaign of the Luxembourg police against Romanian Roma, who came to Luxembourg for the purpose of begging. In a TV report, which was broadcast by the national TV channel, RTL, a representative of the police of the city of Luxembourg regretted, that with the reform of the Luxembourgish immigration law, it was no longer possible to simply expel the Roma. She explained that the police had thus agreed with the Prosecutor to seize their money, if it was proven, that their begging was organised.
EU Policies for Roma Inclusion
The last five years have seen major progress in the development of a common EU approach to increasing Roma inclusion and improving socio-economic conditions in Roma communities. However, this mission and the one to ensure equal rights for Roma, remain incomplete. While the EU Framework for coordinating national Roma strategies was endorsed by the European Council on 24 June, much more is required to ensure respect of Roma rights and social inclusion across Europe. How can the EU move from an overall framework and approach to national-level implementation? This note assesses recent developments in EU policy on Roma, and highlights the further commitments needed to achieve tangible results.
