Integration and equal opportunities

The issue of Roma integration and their equal opportunities is an issue of successful dealing with discrimination. International and European law prohibits any form of discrimination, the EU member states must fulfil the obligations of the international law on human rights and are accountable in case of violation of these obligations. Nevertheless, the Roma population in Europe is treated differently than the majority population, and they face prejudice, intolerance, discrimination as well as social exclusion on a daily basis. Many governmental and NGO’s studies report on different forms of marginalization, discrimination and segregation. Violations are being reported in all fields of social life – from the right to housing, to education, employment, healthcare service, social security, free movement, hate speech, etc.

Surpassing inacceptable attitude to the Roma is only possible if legislation of each EU member state is harmonised with the principles of non-discrimination, and these principles are also realised in practice with the help of complex, effective, targeted, and measurable provisions in legislation and practice. Above all, the practice in each country depends on the political will and the players at the national, regional, and local level. In 2012, the European Commission came to conclusion that despite commitments, the EU member states continue to engage in discriminatory practice towards the Roma people. In 2013, the Council of Europe issued a Recommendation on effective Roma integration measures in the Member States, whose aim is to ensure guidelines for effective measures for the real Roma integration and implementation of national strategies as well as other political measures in wider policies of social inclusion in order to improve the Roma situation and eliminate the differences between the Roma and other population.  

In 2014, the European Commission issued the Report on the implementation of the EU framework for National Roma Integration Strategies, which evaluated the progress in all key areas. The report was presented at the third EU Roma Summit in Brussels, where local and national as well as EU and civil societies’ representatives met in order to assess the progress in social Roma integration in Europe.

The European Commission publishes its work in the field of combatting discrimination on its website: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/discrimination/roma/index_en.htm. The list of initiatives of individual international organizations as well as the multifaceted observation of possible solutions to fight Roma discrimination was published by the European Roma Rights Centre on its website (http://www.errc.org/article/roma-rights-2013-national-roma-integration-strategies-what-next/4238/8).

References:

• European Council, 2013, Recommendation on effective Roma integration measures in the Member States [online], available at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32013H1224(01)&from=sl
• European Commission, 2014, Report on the implementation of the EU framework for National Roma Integration Strategies [online], available at: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/discrimination/files/roma_implement_strategies2014_en.pdf
• European Commission, 2014, Roma integration: EU Roma Summit to evaluate progress [online], available at: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-317_en.htm