EU Roma Summit: Roma need more than words!

Tomorrow the EU will hold its first ever Roma Summit with the aim of creating a better understanding of the situation of Roma across Europe. ENAR, the European Network Against Racism, calls on the European Union to adopt a comprehensive and ambitious approach to the Roma that will secure real change in the lives of the ten million Roma in Europe.

Roma are the largest minority group in Europe and yet suffer most from discrimination and exclusion. On the occasion of the Roma summit, ENAR has published a special shadow report on the situation of Roma in Europe which reveals an alarming picture of the situation of Roma in Europe as being the most vulnerable minority group in essentially all areas of life.1Abuse of their rights to education, housing, healthcare and employment as well as increasing manifestations of anti-gypsysm should ring alarm bells for the EU. Incidents such as those which happened lately in Italy against the Roma population, as well as the reaction of the Italian Government targeting the victims rather than the perpetrators of hate crime and the extensive media campaign activating hatred and evoking racist assumptions against migrants and Roma in the Italian public cannot be tolerated. But the situation in Italy is not an isolated example; it only makes the urgency of action to curb Romaphobia across Europe all the starker. ENAR urges the Summit to come up with concrete ways of tackling the problems faced by the Roma population in Europe by:

1 The full report and summary of key findings from the report is available atwww.enar-eu.org/Page_Generale.asp?DocID=15294&langue=EN. Both will be distributed during the Roma Summit.

1. • Developing common European standards for Roma inclusion with the effective engagement of the institutions and member states of the EU;
2. • Providing basic rights for quality education, adequate and affordable housing, effective health and social services;
3. • Empowering Roma communities and ensuring the active participation of civil society in developing policies;
4. • Challenging extremist groups and inaccurate reporting in the media.

ENAR President Mohammed Aziz said: “The Summit must not result in more empty words; real action and strong leadership are urgently needed in order to secure real change in the lives of people belonging to the Roma minority. EU politicians, and in particular the French Presidency of the EU, have an opportunity to prove their commitment to fundamental rights, they must now take it.”

The European Network Against Racism (ENAR) is a network of European NGOs working to combat racism in all EU member states and represents more than 600 NGOs spread around the European Union. Its establishment was a major outcome of the 1997 European Year Against Racism. ENAR aims to fight racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, to promote equality of treatment between EU citizens and third country nationals, and to link local/regional/national initiatives with European initiatives.