In theory, the Roma are fully-fledged citizens of the EU, but in practice they continue to be stigmatised and marginalised in every walk of life, from work to living standards to education through to health. In the following pages, Europoliticswill focus on this paradox, which has been exacerbated by the global economic crisis. It is a paradox against which the EU’s integration strategies, which are essentially based on EU member states’ good will, seem pretty weak.

Within the Union, discrimination based on race or ethnic origin is prohibited in every area, according to Directive 2000/43/EC. And yet, the people we call ‘Roma’ (out of convenience to describe the Sinti, the Travellers, the Ashkalis and the Kale as well), the biggest European minority with ten to 12 and even 15 million people, are discriminated against most of all, according to the EU’s first investigation on minorities and discrimination, carried out by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), in 2008.

It goes further than discrimination. In Bulgaria, Europe’s poorest country, where nearly 10% of the inhabitants are of Roma origin, they are described as “thieves,” “dirty” and “ignorant” according to very common stereotypes recently recorded by the Open Society Institute in Sofia. These are prejudices that can be found in all European countries. Racism, hatred, low levels of schooling or confinement of Roma children in specialised establishments in Central Europe, the populism of political parties, segregation in access to housing, work, health, schools, shops and cafes, arbitrary expulsions, unemployment, poverty, problems in care and medical treatment, police arrests related to ethnic origin, attacks, threats and serious harassment, including deadly violence carried out by far right groups. That is how all the studies describe the Roma. The EU’s Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities Commissioner, Vladimir Spidla, has come up with a cleverly worded summary of the situation. This is what he said on his blog, on 4 April: “If I were a Roma I’d face discrimination in different forms five times a year, and every five years I’d be the victim of a criminal offence. Typically, I wouldn’t report this to the police, knowing it would be futile. Similarly, finding a job would be almost impossible”.

Begging, theft, exploitation of children, reproachment of the handicapped and settling scores are recurrent problems among Roma communities. As the commissioner goes on to say: “The opinion is widely held that it is the Roma themselves who are responsible for their place in society” and that “this may hold true for some of them, but inadequate social policies account for a large part of the problem”.

The Council of Europe, an intergovernmental organisation of 47 countries, has in vain promoted Romany culture – an integral part of Europe’s cultural heritage for centuries with its music and dance in particular – as opinions are clear. Seventy seven percent of Europeans think that belonging to a Roma community constitutes a handicap in Europe, according to a Commission Eurobarometer in 2006. According to another Eurobarometer published two years later, about a quarter of Europeans would not be comfortable with the idea of having a Roma neighbour, against only 6% if it were a neighbour from another ethnic origin. The strongest views on this are heard in the Czech Republic and Italy.

SECOND ROMA SUMMIT IN APRIL

For a number of years, and even more so with its enlargement eastwards, the EU has been accumulating European Parliament resolutions, Commission reports and other EU Council conclusions on the need to integrate the Roma. The first European summit of Roma, which was organised on 16 September 2008, attracted a lot of media interest. The problem was that a big feature of the conference was the anger of the community itself after the recent Commission approval on what was regarded as the ‘registration’ of Roma by Silvio Berlusconi’s government and against which the European Parliament railed.

It will be up to the Spanish Presidency of the EU to organise the second summit, on 8 April 2010, in Cordoba. The content of this summit is not yet known. But the context may be just as tense, both at the national and EU levels. According to the European Roma Policy Coalition (ERPC), this summit “should give a clear road map for the EU to combat anti-Romani sentiments that have become all too common throughout Europe”. It is also an “unparalleled opportunity to put forth a set of innovative and achievable ideas that will improve the living standards of the Roma and ensure their active inclusion”. Of course, none of this can happen without increased financial commitments from the Commission and the member states, the ERPC adds.

On 8 June, the EU27 relaunched an appeal to “pursue a European integration strategy”. But, the day before, several far-right parties from Central Europe with extremist, xenophobic and anti-Roma discourse were elected into the European Parliament. The parties were the Slovak SNS (one seat), the Party of Greater Romania (two seats) and the Hungarian Jobbik, which burst onto the scene with three seats. This summer, the EU took a real knock when Canada decided to reimpose visas for Czech citizens to slow down the flow of asylum requests made by the Roma. Europoliticsnow publishes two articles on the Czech Republic - but the situation is serious everywhere, as the Council of Europe says in its recent reports. In France, Médecins du Monde [Doctors of the World] recently deplored the fact that Roma, who mostly come from the EU since the entry of Romania and Bulgaria into the EU, are “treated like second tier citizens”. It wants the expulsions from Roma camps without a long-term rehousing solution to stop during the winter time as is the case for housing expulsions.

“ADDED VALUE”

In the end, what can the EU do to deal with such an impasse? In addition to the Roma summit, the EU institutions have not been idle in trying to improve the fate of the Roma. A platform of experts, NGOs and national and European representatives dedicated to the integration of the Roma was set up during the Czech Presidency of the EU, in April. Its priority was education. The platform adopted ten basic principles for the inclusion of the Roma, advocating in particular integration rather than the development of a labour market specifically for the Roma. There are also structural funds (€275 million have been spent on projects helping the Roma between 2000 and 2006). And there is the ongoing pressure on member states to coordinate their policies and to take up ‘good practices’. In this regard, “if Spain manages to integrate the Roma better, it is precisely because it is implementing projects lasting six years,” thinks Commissioner Spidla, referring to a programme for access to jobs financed by the European Social Fund.

The Commission, whose various services (employment, the regions and justice, freedom and security) deal with the Roma dossier from different angles, works on the basis of an overall approach. Above all, it does not want people to criticise it for advocating a ‘catch-all’ policy. “What we need is to highlight the Roma angle in all the specific policies but not to create parallel policies for the Roma alone,” says a top civil servant. A red line is often repeated by the Commission: “Those responsible are at the national and local levels.” The EU has to be happy with bringing an “added value”.

Spidla points to improvements here and there in terms of education, such as the organisation of ‘preparatory classes’ in the Czech Republic, which do not, however, have to be reserved for Roma children. “Very concerned” by the occasionally fatal attacks by neo-Nazi groups on Roma in Hungary and the Czech Republic, the commissioner notes that “we are far from a general change, discrimination is everywhere”.

As for concrete progress, it seems that, in terms of Roma associations in any case, the real hope has been pushed back to 2013, the date when the last restrictions on the free movement of Romanian and Bulgarian workers in the EU are lifted. However, as Christer Hallerby, Sweden’s secretary of state for integration and equal opportunities, puts it on behalf of the Swedish Presidency of the EU, while there are few direct powers at the EU level, “we have the direct capacity to act in the framework of anti-discrimination and that is not so little […] we are ready to use them”.

After seven years of stormy debates, the EU equipped itself, at the end of 2008, with a framework decision aiming to punish racism and xenophobia, including as a crime. The Commission sees in that a “notable step forward in favour of protecting the Roma at the national level against hateful discourse or violent attacks”. But the change will not be imminent: the 27 member states still have a year to transpose it.

The FRA study and the Eurobarometer are available at www.europolitics.info > Search = 260062