Category: General

ERGO Network Annual Policy Conference:
Implementing the EU Roma Strategic Framework
Roma access to quality and inclusive education

20 November, 10h – 16h30, NH Carrefour de l’Europe, Brussels 

Join us for our Annual Policy Conference 2025!  

At a time when Europe is confronted by war at its borders, the ongoing cost of living crisis, and political instability, its Roma find themselves facing worsening poverty and exclusion, dire living conditions, and widespread antigypsyism every day.

The Policy Conference will serve to launch ERGO Network’s research report on “Roma access to quality and inclusive education”, based on six national case studies carried out in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain, with additional benchmarking evidence from Ireland and Sweden.

The event will also provide insights into the implementation of the National Roma Frameworks in the EU and enlargement countries, ahead of the European Commission’s 2026 progress report. It will, furthermore, reflect on complementarities with Council of Europe standards, drawing on findings from ERGO Network’s 2025 data collection exercise.

The conference will bring together ERGO Network members from the grassroots level, EU policy-makers from across the institutional spectrum, as well as other relevant European and national stakeholders.

Please save this date in your calendars! The agenda and registration link will follow soon! 

We’re looking forward to counting you among the participants, so that together we can build positive, sustainable, evidence-based policy solutions that work.

#ERGOConference2025

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: EXTERNAL EVALUATION OF THE ROVA PROJECT

Deadline to apply:  15 November 2025 
Budget: Maximum €13,000 
Evaluation period: Flexible, finalised by December 2027 

The European Roma Grassroots Organisations (ERGO) Network is seeking an experienced external evaluator to conduct an evaluation of the ROVA project (2025–2027). The EU-funded project supports 120 Roma and pro-Roma civil society organisations and 15 national Roma coalitions across the EU through grants, capacity-building, and coalition building, with a total budget of €6.2 million. 

About the evaluation 

The evaluator will assess the project’s relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability, applying methods of empowerment evaluation and involving end beneficiaries. The process should include desk review, interviews, focus groups, and a final evaluation workshop with the project consortium. 

The evaluator will: 

• Propose and implement an evaluation framework that they will implement in partnership with the project consortium 
• Measure progress on both quantitative and qualitative indicators 
• Assess the impact on third-party grantees, and where possible on their target groups 
• Provide strategic recommendations for future grant-making 

Consultant profile:

• Proven experience with programme evaluations, ideally with re-granting 
• Strong understanding of Roma issues and EU policies 
• Experience with civil society, advocacy, and capacity-building 
• Excellent research, analytical, and communication skills 
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively with diverse stakeholders 

How to apply:

• Interested consultants or teams should submit: 
• A proposal outlining methodology, timeline, and budget 
• CV highlighting relevant experience 
• References or a sample of previous evaluations 
• Please send your application to rova_ergo@ergonetwork.org by 15 November with the subject line: ROVA Evaluation Proposal. 

For more information:

Roma Platform 2025: Europe still talks recognition, but we demand Resources

At the 18th European Platform for Roma Inclusion in Brussels, our message from ERGO Network and the Roma civil society was clear: Recognition of antigypsyism is a progress, but it will mean little without resources, accountability and real political participation.

Rights, not charity

Speaking on the high-level panel, former MEP and current ERGO Network Chair Soraya Post welcomed how far Europe has come. For decades, Roma issues were framed as welfare or charity; today, at least on paper, they are recognised as fundamental rights.

“Roma inclusion is no longer treated as an act of charity — it is recognised as a matter of fundamental rights and political responsibility,” she told the audience. But she warned that “recognition without resources will not change people’s daily lives. The rights we have recognised must now be delivered — in schools, in health care, in jobs, and in every part of everyday life.”

Her call was clear: Roma participation in decision-making must become genuine, antigypsyism must be confronted and enforced against, and the next EU budget must include binding resources for Roma equality.

Invited to the end of dinner

Others echoed the frustration. Petre Florin Manole, Minister of Family, Youth and Equal Opportunities of Romania, insisted that cohesion funds must be protected, otherwise “Roma are invited to the end of the dinner, not to eat, but to clean up the mess.

Meanwhile, the EU Fundamental Rights Agency presented its most comprehensive survey yet: more than 10,000 Roma respondents across 1,000 locations, laying bare ongoing discrimination, poverty and exclusion. And Hristo Petrov, MEP, offered a challenge of his own: “True equality is when Roma are not confined only to Roma inclusion issues, but can be present in any other field, so we have the Roma perspective on them.”

Participation as democracy’s test

ERGO Network co-facilitated a workshop on participation, moderated by our Director Gabriela Hrabaňová. The discussion underscored a growing sense that consultation alone is not enough. Advisory bodies without power, under-representation of Roma women and youth, and a lack of trust between institutions and communities keep participation symbolic rather than real.

Yet there were bright spots we have to build on for them to actually make a difference: Roma Political Schools and youth mentoring schemes, minority councils with decision-making power, and alliances with non-Roma organisations that lend weight and credibility.

The workshop set out four urgent priorities: to institutionalise Roma participation in real seats of power; to invest in leadership and trust-building; to bridge international commitments with local realities; and to make participation safe, inclusive and accountable.

For all the speeches and strategies, we left the Platform with a familiar feeling: National governments and EU institutions know the right words, but action lags behind. Recognition of antigypsyism is a milestone, but milestones alone do not change lives.

As Soraya Post concluded, the test is simple: “Roma communities have heard promises for generations. Now is the moment to prove that equality is not only written in EU and national documents — it is lived in everyday life.”

European Commission releases Spring Package 2025: What’s in it for Europe’s Roma?

On 4 June 2025, the European Commission published the Spring Package in the framework of the 2025 European Semester, comprising (among others) 27 Country Reports, 27 Country-Specific Recommendations, and a Communication on the Spring Package. ERGO Network and its national members reviewed the Package to see to what extent it explicitly mentions Roma rights and inclusion, ethnic minorities, discrimination, and racism (including antigypsyism), as well as to assess whether national civil society was involved in the drafting of its documents.

• 1. The Communication on the Spring Package mentions the Roma once, exclusively regarding increasing their labour market participation – but nothing on health, housing, education, discrimination.
• 2. 9 Country Reports include references to the Roma (BG, CZ, GR, HU, IE, RO, SK, SI, ES) in 2025, one more than in 2024, but still insufficient, as the Roma live in 26 EU Member States.
• 3. There are 5 Country-Specific Recommendations on Roma (BG, CZ, HU, RO, SK), who are also mentioned in 7 Preambles (same + GR, ES), a significant improvement since before 2019.
• 4. Ethnic minorities feature in 3 Country Reports (BG, CZ, SK), and discrimination is mentioned in 8 of them (AT, BE, CY, IT, IE, PT, ES, SE). None of the terms appear in any part of the CSRs.
• 5. (Roma) Civil society was poorly associated to the drafting of the Country Reports, but it is mentioned in 8 of them (EE, FR, GR, MT, PT, RO, SI, SE), and in all Preambles of the CSRs.

ERGO Network and its members are delighted to see a return of Roma CSRs, with 5 Member States receiving one, on the backdrop of the overall return to more comprehensive recommendations, including on social inclusion for most countries. We are equally pleased with a high number of references to the Roma and their plight in as many as 9 Country Reports.

 However, whereas the Roma are present in all Member States except Malta, and experience rates of poverty and social exclusion of over 80% in most of them (and almost 100% in some), we would have liked to see them more comprehensively mainstreamed in the Spring Package, including for a number of other Member States.

The recurrent focus on competitiveness as well as productivity and curbing public spending spells dire times for social inclusion, human rights, and equality. It is our members’ experience that, unless the Roma are explicitly named as key target beneficiaries of support measures, and unless specific measures and resources are dedicated to them, mainstream initiatives and broad national and EU funds end up not reaching them.

Our members equally express disappointment that issues of discrimination and antigypsyism are largely absent from the present Package, while these phenomena have increased in recent years. The fact that the country analyses and recommendations do not seek to establish explicit synergies with the EU and national Roma Frameworks, and with the National Action Plans against Racism, is considered a significant missed opportunity.

Finally, ERGO Network members deplore the lack of recognition and support given to civil society organisations in the two country documents, given that most of them are not only on the frontlines, providing essential support to communities in need, but they equally possess the knowledge, expertise, and direct links to beneficiaries which are needed to inform the design of sustainable and effective public policies.

For more information about ERGO Network’s work on the European Semester, contact Senior Policy Adviser Amana Ferro.