in the fight against anti-discrimination
On
the 27th and 28th of October 2009, The European Roma Information Office hosted
the seminar “Future Policies against Roma Discrimination”. The seminar was held
at
the Maison Notre Dame du Chant d’Oiseau, in Brussels. More than
fifty participants, most of them Roma experts and Roma activists, attended the
event. The main issues discussed during the seminar were the relevance and
implementation of positive measures and data collection in the elaboration of
anti-discrimination policies, both at the EU and at the national level. The
core of the debate evolved around the question of whether data collection can
or should be ethnic-based, why some Roma do not agree with the use of data
collection and why this may be a problem. In line with this, the discussion
also focused on the implementation of positive measures directly targeting the
Roma, how and why such measures should be implemented and why the EU can only
influence but not force national policies in this direction.
The first day of the seminar started
with a few opening remarks by Mr. Ivan
Ivanov, Executive Director of the European Roma Information Office (ERIO).
In his remarks, Mr. Ivanov pointed to the difficulty of collecting data among
specific ethnic groups, such as the Roma minority, given that many from such
communities fear that the information will be used for negative purposes.
However, in his opinion, data collection is a tool of significant importance
when it comes to the elaboration of efficient anti-discrimination policies,
both at the EU level and at the national level.
Mrs. Belinda
Pyke,
Director of the Directorate General for
Employment, Social Policy and Equal Opportunities, spoke of the different
measures and legal instruments implemented by the European Commission to fight
discrimination, such as the discrimination faced by the Roma minority across
Europe. Mrs. Pyke insisted on the
importance of the Race Directive, which provides legal protection against
discrimination for minorities in Europe. According to Mrs. Pyke, the situation
of the Roma minority has worsened in recent years and opinion surveys
continuously show that the Roma are facing the greatest discrimination amongst
ethnic groups in Europe. The European Commission therefore supports the
inclusion of the Roma minority but it is equally important that governments and
other actors take action; the European Commission cannot fight discrimination
alone. An example of this is the transposition of EU legislation into national
law. The European Commission can monitor the transposition but not the national
law itself, which is why the Roma civil society has a common interest in
understanding the mechanisms and tools that exist at the national level.
Regarding education, the European Commission is not competent but can decide
upon a series of common targets. The Commission is trying to raise awareness
about the situation of the Roma by organizing meetings between Roma experts and
education-experts at the EU level. This is not intended to revolutionize
anything, but this significantly draws attention to the issues and
discrimination faced by the Roma.
Furthermore, the European Commission
has elaborated a set of “core principles” which are to be respected and acted
out by all actors in order to fight discrimination. These principles include
first of all the need to include the issue of Roma inclusion into general
policies, so as to avoid completely separate policies. Secondly, discriminated
minorities such as the Roma should be explicitly targeted, not exclusively
targeted. These principles constitute
the language the European Commission wishes to use and in Mrs. Pyke’s opinion,
the Commission already possesses the right instruments for the implementation
of these principles. The Race Directive encourages positive action and data
collection at the national level but can in no way amend it. For this reason,
it is highly important that Roma civil society organizations understand the
national mechanisms and do not accept any national excuses for not entirely
implementing the Race Directive. Data
collection is another crucial element of a successful anti-discrimination
policy because it is vital to be able to measure progress or problems. At the
EU level, data collection is of outmost importance but in several Member
States, measuring ethnicities is a highly sensitive issue. It is therefore
crucial that minorities understand that data collection is only carried out for
positive purposes.
Mr. Orhan Galjus,
journalist
from the Netherlands, asked how regional and local authorities can implement
positive actions and how Europe’s new democracies can be role models for the
old democracies. Mr. Biser Alekov, policy officer at the
European Roma Grassroots Organization, went on to ask how the EU’s “core principles”
are actually being applied in the Member States and what the mechanisms which
control their application are. Is there a way to give mandatory force to these
principles, for example, in the field of education? Mrs. Pyke answered these questions by insisting that
there are no mechanisms what so ever to ensure that Member States follow the
core principles. Getting Member States to obey these principles is very
difficult, but the different European Commission departments are increasingly
aware of how their fields relate to the Roma issues, and that is still a start.
Mrs. Pyke’s expectations for the Roma Summit are that the 27 Member State
governments realize that they haven’t done enough and that they need to do
more. Ivan Ivanov suggested that
ERIO should be more involved in this summit precisely because it is ERIO’s role
to contact and inform about Roma issues in Europe. A participant raised the
question of why the OSCE action plan, which has been adopted and constitute an
advanced mechanism for fighting discrimination, is not being used, where to
Mrs. Pyke responded that the action plan does not seem to be working, which is
why the EU is expected to step up the fight against discrimination. Mr. Loek Koster, Roma activist from the
Sinti, Roma Beweging, explained that
the core of his movement is to
obtain cooperation from different actors; his movement wants to change the
image which surrounds the Sinti people. Sinti and Roma are actually very
engaged but the organizations have troubles cooperating with other actors.
The second day of the seminar was
opened by Ivan Ivanov, who insisted on the difference between positive action
and positive measures, which many tend to think are one and the same. Policy
makers seem to think that positive action in favour of the Roma community will
discriminate non-Roma communities. However, positive measures should always be
temporary, meaning that they are created to adjust an unequal situation until
this situation is equal. The moment the measures start to discriminate other
communities or minorities, they immediately have to stop. Positive measures
should serve to make people equal in their field of work or employment; they
serve to give equal opportunities. Mr.
Samir Mile, chair of La voix des Roms argued that when it
comes to the issue of positive action, we need to ask ourselves, what for? For
identity, poverty or culture problems? If we speak of social rights which are
universal, there is a danger of ethniticising social problems and ethniticising
positive actions. In France, racism has been one of the results of positive
actions. The problem is targeting an ethnicity and not a social class.
Ethnicity-targeted positive actions can be very dangerous. For those reasons,
Mr. Mile agreed that positive actions should be implemented within education,
health care, employment but only for social groups, not for ethnic groups.
Mr. Nadir
Redzepi, Roma
activist from Macedonia, argued that the question should not be if positive
action should target the Roma, but why positive action targeting the Roma does
not seem to work. Mr. Redzepi argued
that the Roma themselves are possibly at the core of the problem, the Roma seem
to be lost in their own problems and their demands are too limited. According
to Mr. Redzepi, in order to gain visibility the Roma still need to learn to be
more united, to be more compact in their approach towards the institutions, if
they do not wish to always be treated as a minor problem. There needs to be are
clear definition of the Roma vulnerability, we need to figure out if we are a
social or ethnic problem. In order to
get the message through, the Roma in Europe need to use organizations such as
ERIO. Mr. Ivanov agreed that a clear definition of the Roma vulnerability is
needed, the Roma need to figure out if they want to be considered as victims or
normal people. Mr. Guillermo Ruiz, policy officer at ERIO,
went on to suggest that positive measures already exist for other social
groups, for example for gender equality, how then can positive measures be
applied to the Roma minority?
Mrs. Anna
Cervenakova, intern
at the European Commission, insisted on the importance of changing the current
situation of the Roma in Europe, according to her, the Roma need to come up
above the surface and interconnect with other communities. The Roma might be in
this situation but they can also get out of that situation. The Roma people
have a unique identity, a common story, the Roma are not a social problem, and
they are human people. The EU or national governments will not solve the
problems for the Roma people, which is why the Roma have to do it, they have to
work and take their part. Mr. Milan Milanov, from the Bulgarian
ministry of social affairs, argued
that the issue of positive action and data collection was interesting but that
he was missing the practical side of what exactly should local, regional and
national authorities do to fight Roma discrimination. Nadir Redzepi insisted
that the positive actions be focused on individual cases, positive actions
should have an individual dimension. This individual dimension will also help
not to upset the majority.
Mr. Orhan Galjus asked how the Roma could obtain the kind of affirmative
action that other minorities have received in other parts of the world and how
positive actions can be established in the case of the Roma. The Balkans could
be a good example, for example in Kosovo; quotas have been established for all
ethnicities. Mr. Ivan Ivanov further suggested that the question may not be
whether we have the answers to the question of good anti-discrimination
policies, but whether we will actually be heard if we have those answers. Even
if we, Roma organizations, receive funding from the European Commission, this
does not force national governments to take positive action. Organizations and
NGO’s such as ERIO need to cooperate and work together in order to be heard.
The key to success is optimism; our community has survived for centuries because
we keep on being optimist. Following this, a Romani translator from Italy, talked
about the situation of the Roma and the fact that the Roma does not have a
state, whereas other communities with smaller populations, have states. The
root of the problem, in his opinion is the general lack of knowledge about the
Roma. However, there is a strong will on behalf of the Roma to become part of
society. Another core problem is that the EU is pointing out the problems but
does not have the competence to really put pressure on national governments.
After the break, Mr. Alexandros Tsolakis, from the Directorate General for Regional
Development, pointed out the importance of data collection as one of the means
to fight discrimination. Policies are implemented based on very clear and
verifiable facts; policy-makers need to have a solid basis on which they can
decide how and where to finance policies. Data collection is therefore crucial
in the elaboration of anti-discrimination policies because these should expand
into the long term. In the case of the Roma however, this is complicated
because it is related to ethnicity and in several Member States, minorities and
ethnicities are not officially accepted. Some Roma may also feel that they do not need
to be identified as Roma in order to benefit from equal opportunities, so as we
can see, there is both a technical and a psychological aspect of this issue.
The first issue lies in the fact that many Member States do not have
ethnic-specific data collection and the second issue consists of convincing the
Roma that these data will not be used against them.
The DG Regional Development has recently
launched a pilot project which includes several strands. First of all, the
project will be focused on pre-school education, then micro-finance, general
awareness raising and evaluation and data collection. Mr. Tsolakis expects to
develop tools to evaluate impacts and that the results will permit the DG to
have basic elements to propose policy frameworks in the future. Unfortunately, it is not certain that this
data collection approach will be approved given that a number of Member States
and Roma organizations strongly disapprove this method. Another option would be
to target those who live under the strand of extreme poverty, knowing that a
big part will be from the Roma community. In Spain, this is the method
typically used by the authorities. At times positive discrimination can have
unwanted consequences which is why it is generally better to target
socio-economic groups below a certain limit.
For many years, the Roma were put in the same box as all other
vulnerable and excluded groups. Today however there is a change of mindset
taking place, a change that takes a long time to occur.
After having been introduced by Mr.
Ivanov, Mrs. Cathy Van Remoortere,
advisor to the Belgian Vice-Prime Minister and Minister of Employment and Equal
Opportunities, spoke of the importance of actually evaluating the different
anti-discrimination policies or diversity policies. This stage of a project or
policy is often neglected, however it is highly important. In her opinion, “participatory-evaluation” is
one form of evaluation and a methodology which can be used for both big and
small projects. According to Mrs. Van Remoortere, there are several stages of a
policy. First, the project has to be defined, then the indicators should be
defined, the data material has to be assembled, interpreted and then several
questions should be asked. The main questions should be what are we going to
collect? Why? What is the impact? And how can we use this data? In Mrs. Van
Remoortere’s opinion, choosing a given methodology which can later be evaluated
is very important. In Belgium, for example, contrary to France, data collection
on minorities and ethnicities is widely accepted. Mr. Tsolakis furthermore stressed the problem
of mutual trust when it comes to national census, in many countries,
identifying oneself as Roma is discrimination. Mr. Ivanov then asked the
participants how the Roma could be convinced of the importance of data
collection and how authorities could guaranty that these data will not be
misused. To this, Mr. Samir Mile responded that the best scenario would be to
go from a situation of courage to declare oneself Roma to the situation of
pride to declare oneself Roma. If this should ever happen, then in Mr. Samir
Mile’s opinion, Roma inclusion will be easier to obtain. According to Mr.
Tsolakis, things have nevertheless been significantly reversed in the sense
that up until a few years ago, the mention of the Roma community was considered
politically incorrect. The Roma issue is not mainstream but it is slowly being
recognised which is very important.
After the lunch break, Mr. Ivan Ivanov
presented ERIO’s brochure on data collection and the different examples of
positive actions initiated in various fields, mostly in education and
employment. Mr. Ivanov again insisted that positive measures should only be
implemented until the level of equal opportunities has been reached, after
this, the measures should stop immediately.
Mr. Ivanov explained that the ERIO brochure should serve to inform the
Roma on positive actions. It is only once the Roma have been entirely informed
that the financing and planning of positive actions can begin. However, Mr.
Ivanov also stressed the importance of adopting positive actions according to
specific situations and contexts. Once again, neither ERIO nor the EU can
oblige Member States to implement positive actions, but ERIO can influence the
EU which may indirectly influence the national policies. Following this
statement, several participants suggested that more lobbying should be done
with the Member States themselves, where to Mr. Ivanov argued that some
elements do indicate that Member States might accept positive actions. The
European Human Rights Agency and The Council of Europe are already promoting
and publishing data collection on the Roma and surveys show that roughly 50
percent of Roma agree to the use of data collection. However, the answers
depend very strongly on the level of education and the level of freedom of the
environments in which the respondents live. One very important reason to implement data
collection, as explained by Mr. Ivanov, is the need to identify those who file
complaints to the equality bodies. If their Roma identity cannot be proven,
there is no way of proving the discrimination they are victims of. Official data collection would also help change
the media’s constant use of unofficial statistics and data. In relation to what
had been said, Mrs. Gordana Rodic, Roma activist from the
Netherlands, suggested that data be
collected on the basis of issues of concern and not directly based on ethnicity.
Samir Mile reacted to the debate on data collection by suggesting the use of
anonymous surveys, however these figures may then be considered
non-reliable. Orhan insisted that the
Roma community needed to build good relationships with trustful bodies. He
suggested that the European Commission allocate 10 million Euros to ERIO to
build and establish a pilot project.
The two day seminar on Future Policies
against Roma Discrimination, hosted by the European Roma Information Office,
ended with a few remarks by Ivan Ivanov who thanked the participants for their
contributions and insisted that the various recommendations and suggestions
would be written down and taken into consideration.
Brussels,
October 28th, 2009
Ivan Ivanov
Executive Director, European Roma
Information Office
Avenue Edouard Lacomblé 17
1040-Brussels
Email: ivan.ivanov@erionet.org
Cell: 0473823887
