Roma encouraged to declare their ethnicity

On Tuesday the teams of the Centre went to the Baicului neighbourhood, in Bucharest.

The representatives of the centre argue that Roma refuse to declare their ethnicity for fear of discrimination and the lack of these data is putting Roma in disadvantage, considering that the communities with more than 700 Roma members could have a sanitary mediator, according to the centre.

Moreover establishing the actual number of Roma would lead a larger budget for the Roma programmes.

The Government is currently discussing a strategy for integrating Roma.

The representatives of the organisations for the rights of this minority say that the draft of the new strategy is the most important document regarding the Roma issue.

The document has to meet a series of standards established by the European Commission which has taken part in its elaboration. However, according to the participants, they need to collect relevant data and obtain financing.

The government has to present the final form of the national Roma integration strategy to the European Commission by 10 December.

"The action plan must be as concrete as possible”

The State Secretary of State for Strategic Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bogdan Aurescu, gives assurance that although the strategy is about to be approved, the proposals submitted within the debate held on Tuesday will be included in the final draft.

Moreover, Bogdan Aurescu warns that the strategy must contain a concrete action plan.

"The plan of action must be as concrete as possible and the indicators must be measurable."

"We need to delegate people, to establish the precise budget sources and hopefully we will find solutions as concrete as possible so that we should not adopt a programmatic document, but should have the element that enables the efficient implementation of this strategy and obtain concrete results not at the end of the ten-year period, but much sooner", Bogdan Aurescu stated.

The new strategy must be aligned with other existing strategies

According to the President of the National Council for Combating Discrimination, Csaba Ferenc Asztalos, the new strategy must be aligned with other existing ones, such as the strategy for preventing and combating discrimination that has been already adopted by the Council.

Furthermore, the Government must take into account especially the situation of Roma who live in ghettos, in or outside Romania.

One of the major problems that the Council is facing in this respect is the lack of measures in all state institutions.

"We suggest that all the important ministries should collect data according to the ethnic criteria, in compliance with the personal data protection law, and annually present a report on the situation of the vulnerable groups, including the Roma minority."

"As for the institutional culture, I believe that the public institutions should be forced to elaborate, adopt, and implement an ethical code regarding equal rights and non-discrimination", Csaba Ferenc Asztalos stated.

The representatives of the Civic Alliance of Roma underlined that the strategy must be aimed at the development of local Roma communities by implementing projects designed to encourage their access to the labour market and the social inclusion.

Translated by: Raluca Mizdrea
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University