MINELRES: ERRC: Roma Day 2004 Call for Social Inclusion of Roma in Europe

[MINELRES moderator]

Original sender: European Roma Rights Center <errc@errc.org>


International Roma Day 2004
Action for the Social Inclusion of Roma in Europe
April 8, 2004

On the occasion of International Roma Day, April 8, 2004, the European
Roma Rights Center (ERRC) makes public documents sent throughout the
early months of 2004 to the European Commission, as well as to relevant
government officials, urging that Roma issues be given adequate
attention in European social inclusion processes.

Throughout Europe, Roma remain to date the subject of powerful
exclusionary forces. Anti-Romani hostility results in racial
discrimination and other burdens hindering many Roma from full
participation in the societies in which they live. Actions to combat
these phenomena are still fledgling, but are now underway. In recent
years, a number of international organisations have begun undertakings
aimed at combating anti-Romani racism and the full inclusion of Roma.
These include:
* A Decade of Roma Inclusion (2005-2015), announced in June 2003 in
Budapest, an initiative of the Open Society Institute and the World
Bank;
* The adoption in 2003 by the Organization for Security and Co-operation
in Europe (OSCE) of an Action Plan on Improving the Situation of Roma
and Sinti in the OSCE area;
* Efforts to establish a European Roma Forum to be based at the Council
of Europe, aiming to provide a medium through which Romani inclusion in
decision-making can be secured to a greater extent than is currently the
norm.
* The European Union (EU) has funded an extensive range of projects
focussing on Roma in current Member States, accession countries and
other states. In addition, the EU recently begun undertaking a report on
Roma in an Enlarged Europe, and the same theme will be the subject of a
major conference this Spring.

The 2000 Lisbon European Council of the European Union governments
concluded with resolutions to redouble efforts at combating social
exclusion in Europe. In particular, the European Council invited the
European Council and the European Commission to:
- promote a better understanding of social exclusion through continued
dialogue and exchanges of information and best practice;
- mainstream the promotion of inclusion in Member States' employment,
education and training, health and housing policies;
- develop priority actions addressed to specific target groups (for
example minority groups, children, the elderly and the disabled), with
European Union Member States choosing amongst those actions according to
their particular situations and reporting subsequently on their
implementation.

Since then, European Union Member States have developed and implemented,
on a two-yearly basis, National Action Plans to combat social exclusion.

The ten countries joining the European Union next month are currently in
the process of joining these policy frameworks. A first step was the
development by each government and the European Commission of "Joint
Inclusion Memoranda" describing existing policies for combating social
exclusion in the country at issue. These were signed in Brussels by the
European Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs and the relevant 
government officials on December 18, 2003 and are available on the
Internet Website of the European Union at:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/soc-prot/soc-incl/jim_en.html

During the early months of 2004, the ERRC has offered written comments
on the Joint Inclusion Memoranda of seven countries to the European
Commission and relevant government officials:
* The Czech Republic
* Hungary
* Latvia
* Lithuania
* Poland
* Slovakia
* Slovenia
These documents are available for viewing and download on the ERRC
website at: www.errc.org/news.shtml. They focus on areas in which the
governments of the countries listed should improve social inclusion
policies where Roma are concerned in the fields of education,
employment, healthcare, housing and social security. In addition, they
point out areas in which statistical data on Roma is unavailable in a
number of sectoral fields, significantly hindering the development and
implementation of social inclusion policies. The documents also point
out existing deficiencies in anti-discrimination law, where these exist.

There is a pressing need now to ensure that efforts at the social
inclusion of Roma be rigorously undertaken throughout Europe. The
documents above focus on issues Roma face in some of the countries in
Central and Eastern Europe. Despite the fact that human rights issues
facing Roma have received greater attention than elsewhere in recent
years, major problems such as endemic discrimination and racial
segregation remain as yet effectively untackled in these countries. To
date, Western European governments have also not yet ensured that their
social inclusion policies extend to the weakest in society, and many
Roma remain excluded in Western Europe. The renewed outbreak in March
2004 of ethnic violence targeting persons regarded as "Gypsies" in
Kosovo serves as a powerful indicator of how precarious the lives of
many Roma and others remain throughout southeastern Europe and the
threat of raw violence under which many today live. In the countries of
the former Soviet Union, nascent Roma rights efforts need the full
support of all stakeholders, if Roma in those countries are to realise
their fundamental human rights.

International Roma Day 2004 provides an opportunity to all governments
in Europe to affirm that in the coming period, they intend to devote
time, energy, resources and expertise sufficient to ensure that all Roma
in Europe enjoy full inclusion in practice in the societies in which
they live.

Further information on European Union social inclusion policies are
available on the website of the European Union at: 
http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/soc-prot/soc-incl/index_en.htm

Further information on European Roma Rights Center efforts to ensure the
social inclusion of Roma in Europe is available by contacting the
offices of the ERRC: office@errc.org

_____________________________________________

The European Roma Rights Center is an international public interest law
organisation which monitors the rights of Roma and provides legal
defence in cases of human rights abuse. For more information about the
European Roma Rights Center, visit the ERRC on the web at
http://www.errc.org.

European Roma Rights Center
1386 Budapest 62
P.O. Box 906/93
Hungary


Phone: +36 1 4132200
Fax:   +36 1 4132201

_____________________________________________

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