is Senior Advocacy Officer for the Roma Initiatives of Open Society Institute.
The main stakeholders currently involved in Roma social inclusion continue to struggle to define clear and distinct responsibilities, or simply avoid them. Ahead of this year’s European Roma Platform, Valeriu Nicolae calls for systemic change that addresses key issues of anti-Gypsyism and multi-stakeholder cooperation.
By the end of 2011, European member states are expected to have demonstrated their fulfilment of the requirements of the EU Framework Programme for the integration of Roma. But what are the chances of the programme succeeding if structural anti-Roma racism exists within European institutions themselves? Valeriu Nicolae is founder and president of the Policy Centre for Roma and Minorities in Bucharest, an NGO that works directly with young Roma. At a conference in Berlin in November, he talked about the discrepancy between European rhetoric and institutional reality.
Attempts by successive French governments to deal with Roma migrants smacks of colonial racism, argues Valeriu Nicolae. Deportation will not solve anything; the problems that exist in Roma settlements is the result of decades of neglect, indifference and underfunding.
Despite European Union legislation on the subject, Europe’s Roma remain the victim of discrimination and abuse, as much in the media as in society at large. In Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, not to mention Italy, it is the media that more often than not instigate the witch hunts.
