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The founder of the “Open society” foundations – George Soros, the Deputy-Chairman of the Parliamentary Group of the European People’s Party, Mr. Marian Marinescu, the President of the Group of Greens in EP Mrs. Rebecca Harms, the General Director of DG “Justice” of European Commission, many Members of the European Parliament, representatives of the European Commission, of national governments and representatives of Roma NGO’s attended the conference “The National Roma Strategies: Ensuring a Comprehensive and Effective European Approach to Roma”. The conference was held on November 8, 2011 in the building of the European Parliament in Brussels. Bulgaria was represented by Mr. Georgy Krastev (National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and Demographic Issues), Mr. Orhan Tahir (“Civil Society in Action” NGO) and. Mr. Deyan Kolev (Center Amalipe).

In his speech Mr. Soros made a connection between the Roma integration and economic crisis: both issues are important for the future of Europe. “The euro is here to stay, the euro will be maintained as a factor for stability and the European Commission will support it”, said the financier.

Similarly the European Union can and should be active on the integration of Roma. If national governments are passive has a mechanism to affects their activation.  The inclusion of Roma integration in the so called “Conditionalities” for absorption of EU funds plus support for increasing the capacity of national governments in absorption of funds directed to Roma was the formula proposed by Mr. Soros for the next programming period. George Soros stressed the important role that should play the European Roma Platform. The members of the European People’s Party, socialists, liberals and greens underlined their commitment to the Roma integration. Hans Svoboda proposed to be created “ad hoc” group in the European Parliament which to monitor the implementation of the EU Framework for national Roma strategies and to receive the signals of the civil society. This proposal was very good accepted among most of the participants on the conference.

In his speech Deyan Kolev stressed how important is the implementation of the national Roma strategies to be included in the conditionalities for absorbtion of European funds.  The rules of the European Social Fund should provide a percentage for integrated activities in marginalized communities. Such a requirement was included in the rules of the European Regional Development Fund.  When the Commission assesses the National Roma strategies of the governments it should consider whether they offer specific operations – funded by operational programs and national budgets – or these documents contain only good strategic intensions – called Kolev. It is also a necessity after a year when we are going to prepare the next programming period, the European Commission’s assessment to be according the available measures for implementation of the National Roma Strategies. In the conclusion of his speech Deyan Kolev urged the MEP’s to influence the national parliaments for more active engagement with the Roma integration issue. “One of our main demands in Bulgaria is the National Roma Strategy to be adopted by the National Parliament b - that will make it a qualitatively different document.