Civil Society – Page 3

Annual Members Meeting 2019

Annual Members Meeting 2019

From 20-22 October 2019, ERGO Network’s members came together in Skopje, North Macedonia, to share updates from the past year, set future priorities and learn from each other.

On day 1, the participants attended working groups to define the future priorities of the organisation on the topics of employment, data collection and governance of the network. The governance working group discussed for example the legal status of ERGO, the criteria for membership and rights and responsibilities of members and the board.

Day 2 started with an introduction to different working areas of ERGO Network: The ERGO team and some of the members explained our work on Community-Led Local Development (CLLD), the Most Roma friendly Mayor campaign, our work towards the Post 2020 EU Roma Strategy and support for national advocacy and mobilisation.

In the afternoon, participants had the opportunity to gain new skills for their work back home: Monika Mihaličková led the group through a process of creating fundraising campaigns for the projects of their organisations. Another workshop focused on how to use graphic cues when facilitating meetings, held by Alejandro Gil Carasso.

Day 3 started with exchanging views on the priorities for advocating on the EU’s Post 2020 EU Roma Framework. The participants agreed that the most important topics that we should ask for are an increase of participation of Roma in all areas of designing and monitoring policies and continued EU support for the Western Balkans. National governments should commit to include support for Roma culture, language, history and actions to combat antigypsyism in the National Roma Integration Strategies.

In the afternoon, a group of participants had the opportunity to visit the Municipality Šuto Orizari (Šutka), where Roma are the majority with more than 13,000 inhabitants, and which is governed by a Roma mayor – Kurto Duduš.

Mr. Duduš took the time to meet the group and to explain important developments for the Romani population in the town. In his term, a new pre-school was built, the municipality invested in repairing main roads and the local high school doubled the number of its students. 25 of them were accepted to university this year! The municipality also has an outpatient clinic, where most inhabitants of Šuto Orizari and from nearby villages are treated.

The Annual Members Meeting 2019 closed with a party for all attending ERGO Network members.

We thank our member organization RROMA for welcoming us in Skopje and hosting us in these days!

Civil society united in their demands for the post 2020 EU Roma Strategic Framework

Civil society united in their demands for the post 2020 EU Roma Strategic Framework

Around 40 members of the civil society and other close partners worked hard in September to coordinate and prepare civil society’s input into the ‘Workshop on future policies for Roma’ organised by the European Commission’s DG Justice on 1 October 2019.

We organised two preparation meetings in ERGO Network: one on 16 September, ahead of a DG Justice consultation meeting, and another one on 30 September, ahead of the mentioned 1 October workshop. We also organised an online meeting and had intensive communication over emails to be well prepared and give our best to put together our priorities in terms of concrete demands for the future EU policies for Roma.

Before the 1 October workshop, the European Commission published three short background papers to provide a basis for discussion. The background papers proposed six different policy options for a future EU Roma Framework:

Option 1: “Do less” – no new framework
Option 2: “Do the same” – carrying forward the current framework
Option 3: “Do differently (1)” – fighting antigypsyism approach
Option 4: “Do differently (2)” – Social inclusion approach
Option 5: “Do better” – a revised EU Roma Framework
Option 6: “Do more” – broadened approach to equality and inclusion

During the meeting on 16 September, we created four working groups, based on topics of the published background papers, expertise and interest of civil society actors and we split the responsibilities to analyse the papers. We were soon ready to present our analysis to other civil society partners during the next civil society meeting in ERGO Network on 30 September.

Our position: Option 7

During the 30 September meeting, after very intense and fruitful discussions, the civil society partners agreed to present an “Option 7” at the European Commission workshop the following day. Option 7 can be seen as a combination of options 3,4 and 6, as it takes a double approach of focusing on social inclusion and combating antigypsyism. It combines mainstreaming of Roma inclusion across policy areas with a stronger monitoring component, asks for ensuring funding and puts emphasis on the importance of Roma participation.

At the 1 October workshop, ERGO Network Director Gabriela Hrabanova opened the civil society statements by presenting our option, and Roma civil society as a whole convinced with taking a very strong and united position, asking for a new Council Recommendation on Roma inclusion and combating antigypsyism. The activists furthermore also advocated for a new focus on so far unaddressed forms of antigypsyism such as environmental injustice.

As a follow-up to the workshop, we are asking for Option 7 to be further developed by the European Commission’s experts. Together with our partners we also continue to pursue other advocacy goals, such as asking the Fundamental Rights Agency to develop indicators to measure Member States’ answers to antigypsyism.

We now need everyone on board to continue lobbying for our demands also within the Member States and aim to create a strong and wide civil society support for an effective Post 2020 Framework both in the EU and in neighbouring countries.

If you would like to discuss this further, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with ERGO at g.hrabanova@ergonetwork.org.

Roma Civil Monitor: the third cycle

Roma Civil Monitor partners gather at the Central European University to define the topics of the third round of civil society monitoring reports

Image credit CEU / Andras Dimeny (kepszerk.hu)

The year 2020 will mark the final year of the current EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies, within which Member States have developed their own national targeted policies for Roma or ‘sets of policy measures’. Since 2012 the Commission has been reporting annually on the implementation by the Member States and since 2016 the Member States have been reporting to the European Commission. Civil society efforts to produce reports about the implementation from their perspective were intensified in 2017 when the Commission funded the Roma Civil Monitor project.

The project involves about 90 civil society organizations and experts from all EU Member States (with the exception of Malta) as well as four NGOs with experience working internationally on Roma-related issues, including ERGO Network.

Monitoring reports are available for the first cycle, which investigated how the Member State strategies combat antigypsyism and discrimination, governance and, for the countries with the largest Roma communities, the impact of mainstream education policy on Roma. The findings of the second cycle are also now available. During this cycle, the reporting in all countries focused on education, employment, healthcare and housing.

This year in September representatives of the Roma civil society coalitions met at Central European University in Budapest to discuss which topics they are hoping to address in the third cycle reports. This time the focus will be on what has been missing from the implementation or from the strategies themselves, so the content will vary from country to country.

Some of the topics discussed were the following: Antigypsyism in policymaking; Ensuring Roma inclusiveness in mainstream programmes; Integrated approaches for Roma inclusion; Civil society, empowerment and participation; Social services, fighting homelessness, substance abuse; Youth, children protection and rights, parenting skills, 0-3 care and many other topics. ERGO Network’s advocacy and research coordinator together with colleagues from the Center for Policy Studies lead the workshop on combating antigypsyism and targeting mainstream. Many participants found the topic relevant and identified specific problems that they intend to address in their national context. The next step is both assisting the CSOs and experts in the preparation and the actual preparation of the third cycle reports.

We expect that the publication of the third cycle shadow reports will describe to what extent the situation has developed and where the biggest “blind sports” are, which would be one of the tools and resources used in the process of creation of the new EU Roma Strategic Framework.

Looking back at the EU Roma Week 2019

Looking back at the EU Roma Week 2019

From 18-21 March 2019, the fourth EU Roma Week took place in Brussels, jointly organised by several Members of the European Parliament, the EU Commission, the UN Human Rights Office in Brussels and civil society organisations. The Roma Week offered a framework for a series of events discussing Roma-related policies and giving the spotlight to the fight against antigypsyism. ERGO Network played a leading role in a number of events held during the week.

The Roma Week would not make any sense without the active involvement of Roma activists from across Europe. Therefore, together with the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, the Documentation and Cultural Centre and ternYpe International Roma Youth Network, ERGO Network invited a group of youth activists to prepare for the week in the Roma Youth Advocacy Training. Moreover, ERGO Network coordinated the participation of the most important Roma civil society activists in Europe under the umbrella of the ‘Alliance against Antigypsyism’ together with the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma.

Before the start of events in the European Parliament, ERGO members from the project Joint Initiative to Empower Roma Civil Society in the Western Balkans and Turkey attended the conference Roma Inclusion in the Western Balkans: The Forward Look, Policy v Reality, Where the new World Bank report “Breaking the Cycle of Roma Exclusion in the Western Balkans” was launched.

The first event in the European Parliament was the crucial Reality Check: Evaluating the EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies, where results of the Roma Civil Monitor were discussed. ERGO Network’s advocacy and research coordinator Jelena Jovanovic highlighted good practices and shortcomings of measures combatting antigypsyism, and several civil society representatives gave an overview of their national monitoring reports.

On Tuesday evening, two award ceremonies celebrated individuals for their contribution to Roma inclusion: The European Civil Rights Prize for Sinti and Roma was awarded to the Slovak President Andrej Kiska, and 14 inspiring women activists received the EU Award for Roma Integration in the Western Balkans and Turkey under the theme ‘Unknown Heroes’. As a surprise during the Western Balkans award event, Soraya Post MEP received an award too, for her outstanding support to the fight against antigypsyism in the European Parliament.

On Wednesday, ERGO Network together with Cornelia Ernst MEP brought the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals as a tool to support the fight against antigypsyism to the agenda. The panel discussion was held together with Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP), Sozialfabrik and Soraya Post MEP. The panellists discussed recommendations to civil society on how to use the 2030 Agenda, brought by ERGO Network in the new paper ‘Roma Included’.

The flagship event of the week was the conference ‘Creating trust through uncovering and recognising the truth: Advancing recognition and remedy for antigypsyism’, jointly hosted by Soraya Post MEP, the Central Council for German Sinti and Roma, Fundacion Secretariado Gitano (FSG), UN Human Rights Office in Europe, the Open Society European Policy Institute and ERGO Network. The stock-taking conference focussed on discussing the state-of-play and efforts to advance the fight against antigypsyism through truth, recognition, remedy, trust and reconciliation processes. It also gave voice to several survivors of acts of antigypsyism who shared their stories and highlighted the urgency to act against antigypsyism.

Members of the European Parliament from different political groups signed a pledge affirming that they will continue to work to achieve non-racist EU elections, an effective Post-2020 EU Roma Framework and a continuation of the fight against antigypsyism in the new legislative period. The undersigned MEPs pledged to create a European society in which Roma can access and enjoy their rights set in our Treaties, in which Roma can fulfil their true potential, in which dehumanisation of Roma is stopped, a healthy European society free from racism, such as antigypsyism – a Europe that we can be proud of.

Now it is time to let actions follow the words and spirit of cooperation conveyed during the week. We ask all participating institutions to fulfil the promises made during the Roma Week and work together for an effective EU Roma Framework and an increased fight against antigypsyism.

Annual Members Meeting Tirana, December 8 –12 2018

The ERGO Network 2018 Annual Members Meeting took place on 10-11 December in Tirana to consult members on the update of programmes and initiatives and to enable exchange of experiences and information. In addition the participants discussed the future of ERGO Network and a possible formalization as an association.

During the 1^st day we updated the members about current and future projects and initiatives of ERGO Network and discussed advocacy priorities of ERGO members.

The 2^nd day opened with a breakfast with Marta Garcia Fidalgo,adviser for the coordination of Roma policy at DG NEAR. The breakfast was followed by a video meeting with Soraya Post MEP, the new co-chair of ERGO Network.

Furthermore ERGO member Andras Nun from Autonomia Foundation introduced one of the highlights that we developed in 2018: the transparency and accountability criteria and a board game that supports civil society organisations to implement them.

Then, after reminding ourselves of the 10-years history of ERGO Network and reflecting on the challenges and successes of the organisation, ERGO members discussed the future of the network and a possible formalization as an association under Belgian law.

Moreover they had the opportunity to join working groups that will support ERGO’s work in 2019.

The 2018 Annual Member Meeting ended with a birthday party. The staff of Roma Active Albania prepared an amazing night for the 10 years celebration of ERGO Network. We would like to thank them not only for the party, but for all their help in the preparation and implementation of the Annual Member Meeting!