eleven - EU framework for National Roma Integration Strategies: insights into empowerment and inclusive policy development
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2022
Summary
Introduction
The origins of Roma communities and their arrival in Europe were discussed in Chapter One. It has been estimated that Europe has a Gypsy, Roma and Traveller population of between 10 and 12 million people (Fundamental Rights Agency, 2010). They are Europe's largest minority ethnic group but their predicament presents one of the greatest challenges to the achievement of European ideals on equality and justice. According to a recent European Parliament report:
The Roma EU [European Union] citizens are one of the most marginalised groups in the EU, facing deep and intractable social problems related to low levels of education, high unemployment, inadequate housing, poor health, and wide-ranging discrimination, all of which are interrelated and create a vicious circle of social exclusion from which it is difficult to extract themselves on their own. In some areas of Central and Eastern Europe the Roma unemployment rate reaches 80–90%. Mortality rates and life expectancy are significantly below the EU average. In addition they often suffer segregation in education and housing, a significant factor in their social exclusion. (European Parliament, 2011b, p 7)
Another disturbing indicator of the level of marginalisation endured by Roma is the degree of xenophobia directed at this group in both the East and West of Europe, ranging from the mass fingerprinting of Roma including minors in Italy (ERRC, 2008) to blanket deportations in France without individual consideration and in defiance of EU free movement conventions (ERRC, 2010) and including modern-day pogroms in countries such as Bulgaria (ERRC, 2011c). A number of countries such as Hungary have witnessed the rise of far-right groups that are reviving the hate speech and even symbols of fascism, leading to the scapegoating of Roma (ERRC, 2009). Violent attacks targeting Roma communities have intensified. In Hungary, nine lives, including two children, were lost in a campaign of racist and orchestrated terror (ERRC, 2011d).
A number of programmes have been adopted on Roma issues by the Council of Europe and the EU since the 1980s; an early focus was on improving educational outcomes for this minority (Liégeois, 2007). Following the Copenhagen European Council in 1993, the EU increasingly emphasised the importance of protecting ethnic and national minorities as a norm and as a political precondition for the accession of Central and Eastern European candidate member states.
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- Gypsies and TravellersEmpowerment and Inclusion in British Society, pp. 187 - 206Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2012