Hungarian MEP Járóka discusses Roma issues on BBC's "Hard Talk"

Speaking on the BBC’s "Hard Talk" interview program on 20 February, Hungarian MEP Lívia Járóka said the EU needs to do more to address poverty in Romani communities. Járóka, who represents the Fidesz Party, is the EP’s only Romani member.

Interviewer Zeinab Badawi noted that philanthropist George Soros has remarked that the living conditions for Romani people in countries that have recently joined the EU have deteriorated, not improved, since accession. Járóka responded that she has been trying to raise the issue of the stagnant situation of Romani populations with the EU since 2004 and that it was not addressed until 2011, when Hungary assumed the EU Presidency.

The MEP insisted that a decade ago, Roma were not on the political agenda at EU level, but that today they are. Badawi suggested that while Roma are indeed now on the agenda, they are on it "in a negative way", citing the perception that marginalized Romani people in Europe will inevitably migrate westward in seach of "better welfare systems".

Járóka responded that such migrants are "escaping economic turbulence" and have been unemployed since the 1990s compared to the full employment that prevailed during communism. Badawi then noted that Romanian PM Victor Ponta had said on "Hard Talk" last year that such "benefits tourism" was engaged in by Roma people only.

The MEP responded that while no one actually knows the ethnic makeup of the population involved in the "game" of migrating for such aims, research does show that the net effect of westward migration within the EU is positive. She also noted that anti-immigrant talk usually increases prior to elections throughout Europe and asserted that many politicians are not drawing on EU funding to help Roma because it would be politically unpopular.

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