News

Around thirty representatives of civil society organizations took part of meeting organized by DG Justice of the European Commission on October 4 in Brussels. Most of them came from Brussels based NGOs while the Decade of Roma Inclusion Secretariat supported also certain national based organizations to take part in the meeting. These were organizations that have prepared shadow reports about the National Roma Integration Strategies implementation. Bulgarian team was presented by Deyan Kolev from Center Amalipe.

The meeting was chaired by Lina Papamichalopoulou, head of Roma coordination unit of DG Justice. Representatives of other Directorate Generals – such as EMPL and REGIO also were present.

Mrs. Papamichalopoulou presented short overview of the last developments regarding the Roma integration policy at European level. She stressed the Commission proposal for Council Recommendation on effective Roma integration measures in the Member states outlining that this would be first legislation (although soft one) regarding Roma at EU level. The Lithuanian Presidency of EU has expressed strong support and it is expected to have the Recommendations approved by the end of 2013.

The European Commission starts preparing the first progress report about the NRIS implementation, explained Mrs. Papamichalopoulou. In 2012 we prepared assessment of the submitted Strategies, in 2013 – assessment of the structural preconditions and now we are going to prepare progress report regarding the developments since 2011. That is why the Commission is calling for contributions – from the national governments and from the civil society. Axelle Chaney presented the structure of the contributions. They could be at any EU language. The deadline for them is November 18, 2013.