Christine Sudbrock – Page 37

Roma and the Post–2020 Policy: Challenges and Opportunities

ERGO Network together with its member organizations will be present at a meeting where they will discuss and present the recommendations they and their partners prepared regarding Roma people in the next EU Multiannual Financial Framework’s post-2020. In advance of the meeting, some background information is provided. We will keep you updated on the event tomorrow.

The current Multiannual Financial Framework, the EU’s long-term budget, runs until the end of 2020. This May, the European Commission will put forward a comprehensive proposal detailing the budgetary objectives and regulations governing the post-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework. Currently at the core of these proposed objectives are the protection of EU’s external borders, support for a true European Defense Union, boosting Europe’s digital transformation, and making the EU’s cohesion and agricultural policies more efficient.

Civil society organizations have identified a number of shortcomings concerning the budget, particularly regarding human rights standards, rule of law compliance as a condition to receive EU funds by member states, and effective monitoring mechanisms on the use of EU funds, including funds spent on Roma inclusion. In the current proposal, the Roma people—as well as other minorities—are not direct beneficiaries of cohesion policy funds, a troubling sign regarding future funding.

This conversation about human rights issues in the EU, featuring European civil society organizations in partnership with national Roma and pro-Roma organizations, will focus on the future political and budgetary priorities of the Union concerning Roma populations.

Speakers

Josef Weidenholzer is a member of the European Parliament, Group of Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D).
Soraya Post is a member of the European Parliament, S&D.
Jávor Benedek is a member of the European Parliament, Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.
Claude Cahn is a human rights adviser for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Jamen Gabriela Hrabanova is executive director of the European Roma Grassroots Organisations Network.
Freek Spinnewijn is director of the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA).
Nikolay Kirilov works for the Roma Standing Conference.
Zsombor Farkas is assistant professor of the Social Work Department at ELTE University.
Marc Hostert is head of cabinet of Henri Grethen, reporting member responsible for the audit at the European Court of Auditors.
Marie-Anne Paraskevas is senior policy expert at the Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion of the European Commission.
Andor Urmos is policy analyst for the Directorate General for Regional Policy of the European Commission.

EU Roma Week: an opportunity to focus on tackling antigypsyism in Europe

EU Roma Week took place last week for the third time in the European Parliament, to mark International Roma Day on 8 April. It was an important opportunity to put the fight against antigypsyism – the specific form of racism faced by Roma, Sinti and Travellers – at the forefront of the European Union agenda, and to highlight the need to uphold the fundamental rights of Roma in Europe.

Roma are part of European societies and have been for centuries. But many barriers prevent them from being equal citizens. Tens of thousands of Roma are qualified professionals, but they remain invisible because of the “Gypsy” stigma. An overwhelming proportion of Roma – 80 % on average in the nine EU Member States – still live at risk of poverty, according to a recent report by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency. One in three Roma are victims of harassment. Roma also regularly experience discriminatory stop and search by police, police raids on Roma settlements and other forms of harassment by police forces.

Antigypsyism is often used in a narrow sense to indicate anti-Roma attitudes or the expression of negative stereotypes in the public sphere or hate speech. However, antigypsyism gives rise to a much wider spectrum of discriminatory expressions and practices, including many implicit or hidden manifestations. Antigypsyism is not only about what is being said about Roma and to Roma, it is also about what is or is not being done to combat structural discrimination and dehumanisation. As such, it is also a root cause of Roma exclusion in Europe.

Eight years ago, the EU adopted measures for Roma inclusion, but European Roma continue to live in a deplorable situation. Discrimination, hate crime and speech, police brutality and segregation persist across EU countries and fuel exclusion of Roma from society. This highlights the urgency of stepping up efforts to tackle structural and institutional racism so that Roma can finally become equal citizens in their societies.

This will require that structures that monitor racism, discrimination, hate crime, hate speech, policy implementation are revised and strengthened to effectively document and combat antigypsyism in all its complexity. Civil servants, educators, care workers, police, judiciary and other relevant official bodies need to receive training in how to recognise and combat antigypsyism. The EU and national governments must allocate specific and adequate funding to programmes aiming to fighting antigypsyism. Roma civil society must also be empowered to advocate for better policies and make their concerns heard at the local, national and EU level. They have a crucial watchdog role to make public institutions accountable.

EU decision makers must realise that social inclusion programmes will have no impact if racist narratives and discriminatory practices are left unaddressed. A growing sense of impunity for toxic discourses and violent acts will undermine implementation of these programmes on the ground. By fighting antigypsyism, including within institutions, we can secure a better place for Roma in Europe.

European Semester 2018: Will EU Members States include Roma in their National Reform Programmes?

European Semester 2018: Will EU Members States include Roma in their National Reform Programmes?

On 22 November the European Commission launched the 2018 Autumn Package of the European Semester, the first step in the annual cycle of economic and social policy coordination between the EU Members States and the Commission.

Each year, the European Commission produces an analysis of each country’s situation in a number of policy areas, including social policies. These “country reports”, together with the National Reform Programmes (NRPs) drafted by national governments, lay the ground for the so-called Country-Specific Recommendations (CSRs), which advise national governments on measures to take in their future policies. The country reports for 2018 will be released in February 2018.

Regularly the countries with large Roma populations (e.g. Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary and Czech Republic) receive the recommendation to speed up the implementation of their national Roma integration strategies and ensure that Roma are not left behind. So far, however, these recommendations were hardly taken into account.

In the Annual Growth Survey the European Commission sets out general policies and social priorities for the year ahead. After a few years of focusing on macroeconomic reforms, for 2018 the survey finally highlights again the importance of social issues and brings up the importance of an integrated approach for the inclusion of vulnerable groups. This reflects the recently adopted European Pillar of Social Rights and gives hope that it will be taken seriously by the European Commission and Member States.

According to the Annual Growth Survey the top priorities for 2017-2018 relevant for Roma are:

Equal opportunities and access to the labour market
Promoting well-functioning labour markets and modern welfare systems
Job creation and fair working conditions
Social protection and inclusion to tackle inequality and poverty

ERGO Network hopes that the European Commission will continue to give priority to social issues in the next steps of the 2018 European Semester and will not overlook Roma in its country-specific recommendations as the most excluded minority in Europe. The implementation of the EU Roma Framework with its National Roma Integration Strategies should be supported by the European Semester.

ERGO Network urges the European Commission and the Members States that their response to social problems should not only be linked to employment, but also to the rise of antigypsyist attitudes that Roma are facing daily and that impediment their wellbeing in all spheres of their life.

Opening up Communities, Closing down Institutions

Opening up Communities, Closing down Institutions: Harnessing the European Structural and Investment Funds

On 22nd November 2017, ERGO Director Jamen Gabriela Hrabanova took part in an event of the initiative Community Living for Europe: Structural Funds Watch, where a report on the use of EU funds for community leaving was launched. The event took part in the European Parliament and was co-hosted by Mairead McGuinness, MEP (EPP) and Vice President of the European Parliament and Iskra Mihaylova, MEP (ALDE) and Chair of the European Parliament Committee on Regional Development.Regarding children, evidence shows that a caring and protective family, immediate and extended, is central to a child’s health, development, and protection. Community living is a human right, recognised under European and international law. However, Roma children are overrepresented in institutional care, confirming that poverty is the chief cause of children being separated from their families and placed in institutions.

The report analyses the role of the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) with respect to the transition from institutional to community-based living for children and young people, including those with disabilities, adults with disabilities and older persons in EU Member States. It contains examples, both positive and negative, that demonstrate how the Member States have implemented the ESIF regulations, how they are currently using or are planning to use the ESIF to support the transition to community-based living, and provides concrete recommendations for the current and next funding period post 2020.

Jamen Gabriela Hrabanova from ERGO Network brought the Roma perspective to the launch event. Children and young people make up almost half of today’s Roma population in Europe (around 35.7% under 15 years compared to 15% of the majority population). Investing in deinstitutionalisation is therefore an investment into Europe’s future generation that will yield very high returns. There is however a lack of preventive measures to stop institutionalisation of Roma children, as the number of social workers who support discriminated and poor families is insufficient and investment into community projects is extremely scarce.

She pointed out that new kinds of services need to be created that are adapted to the needs of the people, who should be involved in the design of these services. Only when beneficiaries have their say, the use of European Structural and Investment Funds can really be effectively used for social inclusion measures. This must of course include Roma beneficiaries, as they are often a main target for social inclusion measures.

The initiative Community Living for Europe looked in particular into the effect of the ex-ante conditionality 9.1 that demands Member States to invest in de-institutionalisation when using European Structural and Investment Funds. Also for Roma an ex-ante conditionality (9.2) is in place. It demands Member States to have a national Roma integration strategy in place if they want to access ESIF. As with conditionality 9.1. on active inclusion however, also in the Roma field having a strategy in place does not mean that it will also be implemented. A change in policy is therefore necessary that puts more emphasis on quality of implementation of social investment measures in EU member states.

ERGO and its member organisations will continue to monitor the use of ESIF for the social inclusion and poverty reduction of Roma and greatly appreciates the report issued by Community Living for Europe: Structural Funds Watch.

You can find the report here: https://eustructuralfundswatchdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/cle-sfw_opening-up-communities-november-2017_final.pdf

Annual Members Meeting

Annual Members Meeting 2017

On 26 November 2017, ERGO Network’s member organisations came together for ERGO’s Annual Members Meeting. 45 participants from 25 member organisations joined the ERGO Board and Secretariat in Brussels for a day full of discussions and networking.

After being updated on the highlights of ERGO’s work in 2017, the members shared the achievements of their national and local organisations, showing the wealth of expertise that ERGO Network assembles through its membership. This expertise also became evident in a membership survey that ERGO has conducted in the past months and that has been presented by the secretariat, giving everyone a better oversight over the diversity within ERGO.

To follow up on this membership survey, the ERGO board set up a working group that will establish clearer criteria for membership in ERGO Network as well as propose reforms to the process of joining the network in the coming months.

Finally, the Annual Members Meeting was also an opportunity to plan common initiatives. During the ‘Open Space of Cooperation’, the participants discussed project proposals or used the time to share their experiences in specific working areas. One working group for example planned a European youth project on online hate speech, whereas another one discussed the current statutes of ERGO and reflected on possible constitutional reforms.

The following day, all members were invited to ERGO’s public event ‘Investing in our future: what work(s) for young Roma’, with some of them contributing as speakers to present promising examples of Roma youth employment and empowerment from their own work.

We thank every one of our members for contributing to the meetings and for all their input and engagement throughout the whole year.