Europe's poorest minority

Representatives of Europe's Roma and Sinti communities began their two-day summit on Thursday in Cordoba, Spain, to discuss anti-discrimination initiatives with European Union ministers.

"Efforts to aid this community must be taken, from daycare centres to services for the care of the elderly and passing through ordinary education and the employment of adults," EU Social Affairs Commisioner Laszlo Andor said.

European Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding called discrimination against Europe’s largest and poorest minority “unacceptable,” and promised a campaign to integrate Roma children into schools in all 27 EU member states. This comes more than two years after the European Parliament called for an EU-wide policy regarding the Roma in January 2008.

Roma across Europe often have limited access to public resources and education. So far, charges have been brought against 12 EU member states, including Germany, for not applying European laws banning discrimination based on race.

"The situation faced by numerous European gypsy citizens is scandalous," Belen Sanchez Rubio, a spokeswoman for the rights group Fundacion Secretariado Gitano told the news agency AFP.

Leaving Germany

This year hundreds of Roma families currently residing in Germany are expected to be sent back to the Balkans. Many of them will end up in Shutka, a municipality of the Macedonian capital Skopje - and the world's biggest Roma shanty town.

"For them it's a huge culture shock," Ellen Glissmann, a German social worker who handles families returning to the Balkans, told Deutsche Welle. Glissmann meets many Roma who have grown accustomed to the German living standard.

"The children were born in Germany, went to German kindergartens and schools, and in the Balkans they are left with nothing," she explained.

Vesna is a charity worker for an initiative in Shutka sponsored by the German organization Caritas. She told Deutsche Welle she has little hope that many of the children she cares for will leave this slum. She believes that progress can only happen over time.

"Our wish is that the children learn a bit here at the school, that they become more educated than their parents," she said.

"Maybe these kids' children will leave the slum some day and have a profession. Then we'll have won."

A vicious circle

Though the days of Nazi extermination and forced sterilization of Roma are over, many Roma and Sinti are still nomads, forced to move from country to country in search of housing and food.

The cycle is hard to break. Many Roma parents send their children onto the streets to beg for money or collect garbage they can sell. As long as parents are financially dependent on their children, the children cannot attend school.

Meanwhile, in eastern Europe, many Roma children who do attend school do not receive the education offered to other children.

"They are either segregated into Roma-only classes, unjustly considered unfit for normal classes or, even worse, they cannot attend school at all," said Jozsef Berenyi, a rapporteur of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly.

In Slovakia, for instance, it is estimated that only 3.0 percent of Roma children finish high school, and only 0.3 percent attain a university degree.

Slowly improving prospects

Some initiatives are already working to improve the lives of Europe's Roma. Through the encouragement of the World Bank, ten south-eastern European countries are taking part in what is called the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015.

The financial branch of the initiative is the Roma Education Fund, which so far has supported the education of 30,000 Roma children. The Fund's director, Tobias Linden, believes his organization is making a difference.

"The relationship of the individual governments to the Roma has improved noticeably," Linden said.

In Cordoba, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and President of the EU Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, have cancelled their attendance of the two-day summit.

Still, Belen Sanchez Rubio of the Fundacion Secretariado Gitanothere hopes "that this summit will lead the European Commission to assume a leading role when it comes to the gypsy question, as has been demanded by the European Parliament."

Author: David Levitz
Editor: Rob Turner