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More than 300 representatives of the European Commission, national governments and Roma NGOs took part in the Fifth meeting of European Roma Platform. It took place on March 22 in Brussels and was aimed to discuss the first preliminary findings about the National Roma Integration Strategies submitted by all 27 EU member states to the European Commission.

The meeting was opened by Vice-President and Commissioner on Justice Viviane Reding, the MEP Livia Jaroka and the Danish Minister on Social Affairs and Integration Keren Hekkerup. Through video-massage the participants were welcomed also by the Commissioner on Employment and Social Inclusion Laszlo Andor.

We managed to put and to keep Roma issue in the agenda. Roma is issue not for 5 or 6 conties but for all 27 EU Member states, stressed Vice-President of the European Commission Viviane Reding opening the meeting. She noticed that now all 27 counties has submitted National Roma Integration Strategies. There is a lot of places for improving, especially regarding sustainable financing of the Strategies, monitoring  and evaluation, said Mrs. Reding. A lot of paper, i.e. a lot of nice words but not concrete measures, targets and ambitious terms could be found in these documents. Nevertheless, even we are not fully sutisfied from what we received it is a miracle that all countries now recognize the need  to work for Roma integration, explained Mrs. Reding. This is just the beginning, we will continue working with the Member  states to help them making  the strategies a reality. (The full text of the speech could be found at http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/12/215&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en)

Livia Jaroka also appealed the NRIS to be examined from the point of financial sustainability they envisage. She stressed on the local implementation of these documents that should be done together with the local Roma communities and Roma organizations. There are good and bad projects for Roma integration and we have to learn from both types; that is why I propose to create database not only of good practices but also of bad ones in order to avoid their further financing, stated Mrs. Jaroka. She expressed her support for including the National Roma Integration Strategy in the so-called “ex-ante conditionality” for absorption of EU funds. The only Roma MEP appealed to Roma to help self-organizing the local Roma communities in order to take active part in the development process.

The further discussion was organized in 3 panels: Putting Plans to work, Participation of stakeholders and Socio-economic aspects. The main speakers were representatives of different DGs of European Commission and ministers from Member states. The Roma civil society was not represented proportionally – Roma organizations had only three slots in the program, two of them in the Panel „Active participation of stakeholder“. There was option to raise questions during the discussion but after the set of speeches in the panel this chance was strictly limited. This provoked reaction not only by Roma representatives of the room but also by some governmental officials.

Bulgaria was represented by George Krastev (NCCEII), Rositza Ivanova (Secretariat of NCCEII), Rumian Russinov (Center for Public Policies and Advocacy) and Deyan Kolev (Amalipe). George Krustev, who was one of the speakers in Panel 3 stressed that Bulgaria is the only country whose NRIS is approved by the Parliament and this makes it obligatory for all institutions. He claimed that the strategy has substantial financing through Action plan. Deyan Kolev added that 71 out of 120 activities in the Action plan are without financing and there are fields with no financing – employment, culture and media. He aslo explained that the most concrete part from the Strategy – the appendix “Programs for implementation of NRIS” is still not approved by the government although from 3 months high-level politicians promise it. Kolev claimed the Roma integration measures to have clear financial share in the Partnership contract for the next planning period between European Commission and Bulgaria, Romania and other countries with significant Roma population. In addition, it is necessary in Human Resources Development OP and Regional Development OP to have priority axes Integration of marginalized communities