Open Letter to Commissioner Reding: Six months of silence of the Roma Unit

[Roma Virtual Network]

 

 

Open Letter

 

To:

Vivian Reding, Vice President of the European Commission

Cc:

Lazlor Andor, Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs; 

Cecilia Malmström, Commissioner for Home Affairs,

Françoise Le Bail, Director General for Justice

Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea, Director Equality Directorate;

Kinga Gönzc, MEP, Liva Jaroka, MEP

 

Concerning:  Six months of silence of the Roma Unit

 

 

Your Excellency, dear Commissioner,

 

On May 18^th it was exactly six months since the Roma Unit, that falls under your responsibility, stopped communicating with (Roma) Civil Society. While at the 6^th EU Roma Platform meeting the Roma Unit tried to follow up on the Council Conclusions of 2008 to "stimulate cooperation between all parties concerned by Roma issues, including the organisations representing Roma, in the context of an integrated European platform".

 

ERGO Network together with the European Roma Policy Coalition (ERPC) was closely involved in organising the 6^th Roma Platform meeting and facilitated the exchange between Civil Society players before, at and after the meeting. The repeated response of the main representative of your Roma Unit was simply that we failed. We still don’t know why and how, because since all attempts to communicate (except for informal meetings) has been denied. 

 

Now it becomes clear that the Roma Unit encounters difficulties with the assessment and analysis of the National Integration Roma Strategies (NISRs) that have been submitted to the Commission in frame of the EU Roma Framework. The ERPC and ERGO already foresaw in an early stage and pointed out repeatedly that the Roma Unit has limited capacities and expertise to handle this and called (among other important measures) for establishing thematic working groups that can feed in the policy process of the Commission (see attachments).

 

At the 6^th Roma Platform meeting, Mr. Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea announced the establishment of such working groups in his concluding speech: “Following the consultation of stakeholders, the new setup of the Platform foresees the combination of specific workshops and plenary sessions, which can be prepared in advance, according to the subject”.

 

To our surprise, the 7^th Roma Platform meeting, the so called Extraordinary Roma Platform, did not allow meaningful consultation opportunities. Moreover, after the extraordinary Roma Platform meeting we have more questions than answers. How will the EC guide the process of implementation of the NISRs, how will be ensured that the MS will perform at its optimum to implement the NRISs, what is the role of the stakeholders, especially that of Roma Civil Society, how can grassroots Roma benefit from the NISRs at best?  The Platform failed to clarify them, but these fundamental questions need to be answered soon.

 

ERGO Network welcomes the initiative of the Commission to encourage Member States to draft and implement NISRs and recognises that this is huge challenge for the EC to bring about the necessary change. As grassroots oriented network, we can offer a valuable contribution to bring the EU Roma Framework to a good end in 2020 by offering our expertise, if clear mechanisms are in place that enables us to contribute.

 

1. Roma Civil Society

ERGO Network uniquely unites grassroots oriented organisations that aims to bridge de gap between European and local realties. We know from our 15 years of experience that social inclusion of Roma is an uphill battle. We invested in empowerment of Roma, to speak up and to advocate for their interests. Through its work, ERGO and its members understands the local dynamics that need to be taken in account when designing and implementing policies.

ERGO Network noticed that there are only few Roma organisations that are able to participate in the policy dialogue on local and national level. On top of that, the ESF did not contribute to a healthy and independent Roma Civil Society. Contrary, in most countries where ESF funding is available, Roma organisations either turned into service providing hesitant to speak up to their governments or struggle for survival and lack human capacity. Independent organisations are of utmost importance to question and to monitor the performance of governments and institutions.

Intensive and long term investments are needed to capacitate Roma organisations to play a key role in the policy process. Roma on the local level, in the framework of the ESF, need to be provided expertise, skills and tools to enter dialog with local authorities and with some basic financial resources to create the much needed bottom-up pressure to Roma policies work.

 

2. Combating Anti-Gypsyism

ERGO Network strongly believes the NRISs process provides a chance to break the vicious circle of poverty and exclusion. However, if the root cause of Roma poverty and exclusion, thus Anti-Gypsyism, is not taken in account, the EU Roma Framework will fail. The Commission is puzzled about the non-absorption of funds for Roma. According to us this is due to an over-arching lack of political will at local and regional level, due to which Roma policies have to be implemented. It is very clear: Anti-Gypsyism  blocks Roma inclusion.  As long as (Roma) populism still pays off for local politicians to be re-elected and widespread anti-Gypsyism is still taken for granted, crucial mechanisms are lacking to allow Roma to be full citizens in their country.

 

Promoting social inclusion cannot lead to genuine successes if not coupled with effective measures to tackle discrimination and Anti-Gypsyism.  Without bottom-up pressure, that creates genuine relations between Roma and their authorities to turn paper remedies into tangible results, the well intended National Strategies will fail.  We have experience in combating racism through public awareness campaigning that are driven by Roma themselves. Especially young Roma showed to be eager to shape the public debate on equal citizenship through local advocacy, media presence and enhancing intercultural dialogue.

 

Now, six months after the last communication with your staff of the Roma Unit, we turn to you. We cannot deny our impression that the Commission is dealing with the implementation of the EU Roma Framework in an ad-hoc way. Could you please explain us what is the strategy for the coming years to achieve the aims of the EU Roma Framework? How can we, as unique civil society stakeholder, play a role and offer our expertise and insights in local dynamics to contribute to improved Roma policies and plans?  How can we, as you said in your opening speech at the 7^th  Roma Platform Meeting, contribute to ‘a transition from scattered, project-based interventions to comprehensive, evidence-based strategic thinking”?   

 

We are looking forwards for the reopening of the dialogue and cooperation with your DG.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Ruus Dijksterhuis

ERGO Network

 

 

Attached:

Consultation Note ERGO (June 28th 2011)

ERGO’s Letter to Barroso et al (October 3^rd 2011)

Consultation note ERPC (October 13^th 2011)