IP/00/341
Brussels, 7 April 2000
Commission welcomes the Roma International Day (8 April 2000)
Roma International Day will be celebrated tomorrow. The European Commission welcomes this initiative as it will increase public awareness on the problems facing the Roma population. The European Commission is among the strongest supporter for the Roma integration in the societies. Last week at the financing Conference for the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, the European Commission confirmed it will devote 500.000 Euro to a project in favor of Roma in the region. The European Commission is also funding refugee return programmes under the OBNOVA Programme
Roma international Day is celebrated in commemoration of the First International Roma Congress in London in 1971, which marked the beginning of a co-ordinated effort to promote Roma rights at the international level.
The International Roma Day represents an opportunity to recall that, regretfully, Roma remain a vulnerable group in many countries. For example in some countries of Central and Eastern Europe, deep-rooted prejudice continues to result in discrimination against Roma in social and economic life. There has been an increasing incidence of racially motivated violence against the Roma which has not received the unequivocal response from the authorities which it demands. Roma communities suffer from unemployment, slum-like living conditions, poor health and education and increasing dependence on social welfare. Roma children are segregated in some school systems and many are street children.
In the countries of the former Yugoslavia, the situation of Roma remains a matter of deep concern. In Kosovo, Roma have suffered discrimination and acts of violence. Today, there are a large amount of Roma internal displaced persons from Kosovo in Serbia, Montenegro, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their most urgent needs relate to adequate housing and access to humanitarian assistance. The major obstacles against the provision of accommodation and assistance are lack of resources, the fair distribution of the existing resources, and prejudices against the Roma community.
The European Commission remains committed to protect and promote the rights of the Roma. It does so in co-operation with the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institution and Human Rights (ODIHR).
Within the Union, the European Commission has undertaken a number of activities to improve the situation of the Roma. The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, established in 1997 during the European Year against Racism, focuses, inter alia, on the situation of the Roma. The Centre provides the Union with objective, reliable and comparable information at European level on racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism.
Moreover, the new Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty provides the legal basis to take appropriate action to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.
The situation of the Roma communities is also being taken into consideration in assessing the capacity of the candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe to become members of the EU. The Accession partnerships, which are roadmaps to help candidate countries to prioritize their preparation for accession to EU, make the improvement of the situation of Roma a short and medium term political priority in countries with larger Roma communities. In order to help them to improve the situation of Roma, assistance is made available, mainly through the PHARE programme (around 3 Mio € in 1998, and 10 Mio € in 1999).
In addition, under the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights, the Commission is funding confidence building measures and dialogue between different communities throughout the region, including in Kosovo.
The European Commission calls on all partners in the international community to join in enhancing support for the Roma throughout Europe, to ensure that Roma communities can play their rightful role in society free from discrimination and racial prejudice.