EC Gives Member States 8 Months on Roma Inclusion Strategy

Bulgarian protesters and Roma rights activists hold a poster in front of the French embassy in Sofia in Sept 2010 against the expulsions of Roma from France. Photo by BGNES

EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding has imposed an eight-month deadline on member states to come up with their national plans within the EU Strategy for Roma integration and inclusion.

Reding told MEPs Wednesday, as cited by the BBC, that there will be goals for Roma integration in jobs, healthcare, housing and schools - such as ensuring that all Roma children attend primary schools.

She announced that member states would have until the end of the year to submit national plans on how to meet the much anticipated EU Roma Strategy – which came into being after in 2010 France deported thousands of Bulgarian and Romanian Roma back to their home countries, considering them a public safety hazard.

Viviane Reding, who has clashed with French president Nicolas Sarkozy over his administration's Roma deportations, said national authorities faced a "serious challenge" to end Roma exclusion.

"Most important to me is that member states help ensure that all Roma children complete at least primary school," she said.

Her colleague, Employment Commissioner Laszlo Andor has told MEPs the EU has a "moral and political obligation" to improve Roma integration, while presenting the Commission's new Roma inclusion strategy.

There are around 10-12 million Roma people living in the EU, particularly in countries such as Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, and they are believed to be the EU's largest ethnic minority. Most of the Roma in Bulgaria and elsewhere live in abject poverty, and their communities are burdened by outside discrimination as well as self-exclusive clan structures.

The BBC points out that research from Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia found that only 42% of Roma children completed primary school, compared to an EU average of 97.5%. In secondary schools, Roma attendance was estimated at 10%.

The European Roma Policy Coalition group said the measures of the newly drafted EU Roma Strategy recognized the need to fight discrimination, but it decried the lack of specific measures to combat intimidation, anti-gypsyism, hate speech or violence against Roma.

"The framework falls far short of fully tackling the challenges of Roma exclusion, which are intimately linked to widespread hostility and discrimination against the Roma people," the group said.

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