Brussels, March 12th, 2009 – ERIO, the European Roma Information Office, welcomes yesterday's adoption by the European Parliament (EP) of Magda Kósáné Kovács' report on improving the labour market accession for the Roma.

Ivan Ivanov, ERIO's Executive Director, stated: “Access to the labour market is the key to overturn the conditions of deprivation and segregation the Roma minority is undergoing everywhere in Europe. Despite the strong message coming from the EP report, we think that education alone is not the panacea for accessing decent jobs. We realise education is essential and may be the most important field for programs and policies to focus on, but these policies should ensure effective continuation into the labor market with eliminating barriers based on prejudices and racist attitudes. Many times education and schooling programs for Roma fall short of their objective because, at the end of long school and training years, Roma find very hard to find a job due to discrimination based on their ethnicity. That is the reason why we think education alone will not solve the problem of Roma extremely high unemployment if there is not a change in the racist attitude toward the Roma minority ”.

Therefore ERIO asks to the European, national and local policy-makers to build a strong link between the education of Roma and their effective access to the the labour market.

“If poor Roma families invest time and money in the education of their children but at the end this results in no employment, the Roma community will continue considering sending children to school as a loss of precious resources. So the problem here is not just the access to education but access to fair jobs. This can be achieved through fighting against discrimination and stereotyping of the Roma”, Mr Ivanov concluded.

For further inquiries, please contact ERIO’s Executive Director: Ivan Ivanov, +32/472/823887