News

By Order 635/01.08.2012 of the Minister of Labour and Social Policy, Totyu Mladenov formed a Working Group for the preparation of the Operational Programme “Human Resources Development” for the new programming period. The group involved 74 representatives of key institutions involved in the implementation of the HRD OP, local groups and NGOs. The head of the group is Zornitsa Rusinova – Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Policy. The Roma organizations will be represented by Deyan Kolev (Amalipe) and Gancho Iliev (World without Borders), after the selection process in July.

The working group should prepare a first working version of the new OP “Human Resources Development” 2014 – 2020 by 28-09-2012. The final version of the programme should be submitted by 29-02.2013.

Thanks to the efforts of Roma organizations and the good cooperation with the European Commission and the Managing Authority of the programme over the past programming period HRD OP had a special chapter “Areas of Action towards the Roma Community”. Within the framework of the programme several competitions for projects aimed at vulnerable minority groups with focus on Roma were funded. The European Commission proposed a new regulation on the European Social Fund focusing on Roma integration requiring that each country has approved the National Strategy for Roma Integration and provides the special investment priority “Integration of marginalized communities (e.g. Roma)”.