The Roma people, a sub-group within the Romani minority, often known by the unofficial exonym gypsies, are widely dispersed with their largest concentrations in the central and eastern European countries of Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Slovakia, though particularly large populations are also existent in France and Spain. Roma people have been historically persecuted and were a targeted group during the Holocaust with a high estimation of one million being victims of genocide. They are still subject to significant discrimination and the majority live well below the poverty line.
Roma exist in each member-state of the European Union and attempts to identify as a collective group are hindered by the heterogeneity of Roma culture driven by geographic location and varying traditions, levels of education, socioeconomic status, and even language (though a common language does exist). The European Union has the potential to serve as an ally to the Roma community transnationally across the region of eastern and western Europe and has made strides to counter issues regarding the Roma. The EU, however, has been faced with complexities and opposition in both identifying the primary concerns and working toward solutions. Individual states, such as France (as I discuss more in depth in my term paper), domestically create policy regarding Roma, but the European Union possesses the authority to create policy on the supranational level which, in effect, would supersede domestic policy. The European Union has yet to solve all the complexities associated with the Roma and the lack of policy creation is due, in part, to the complex nature of the issue and the general opposing views regarding the foundations of potential policy. There are several contributing factors to the difficulties institutions face in recognizing and addressing the issues associated with one of the most discriminated and marginalized groups existing in the European Union.
In looking at the interrelation and dynamic between the European Union and its member-states, particularly France, it is interesting to note that the European Union does not earmark funding specifically for Roma integration. It does, however, offer funding to invest in regions and cities to help reach goals of creating jobs and increasing economic growth, dealing with climate change and energy advancement, and reducing poverty and social marginalization. The Regional Policy or Cohesion Policy encourages member-states of the EU to focus on investing in growth and investing in people and comprises more than one third of the European Union’s budget.
Each member state of the European Union is responsible for creating and implementing strategic plans about how to use funding from the European Union to improve the integration of vulnerable people, which would include the Roma. The National Roma Integration Strategy as set forth by France is more comprised of a set of measures that focus on the gradual elimination of poverty amongst the marginalized Roma. This plan will be implemented by investing, with emphasis, in the particular areas of education, employment, healthcare, and housing. This method of strategy was created as France faces two main problems when working to integrate Roma. According to the framework of the communication from the European Commission and France’s strategy, assimilation can go against the objectives of recognizing the distinct cultures and identities that comprise French society in efforts to integrate and second, French law, in terms of the construction of public policy, does not allow measures to be targeted to specific ethnic groups.
“Different categories of issues are assumed to evoke the participation in the decision-making process of different numbers of actors, who vary in their motivation and ability to act as well as in their readiness to engage in political bargaining and compromise” (Potter 1980). The issue of the Roma has proven to be an important one, yet an overwhelmingly complicated one. While the level of pressure and gravity of situations influence policy-change, policy-change is hindered by the complexities of a compilation of interdependent dimensions.
To be clear, there are very obvious economic, cultural, and social injustices regarding the Roma that must be addressed. The European Union has begun to focus more attention and efforts into the integration of Roma by funding initiatives to improve education, healthcare, and employment opportunities to invest not only in the Roma as an ethnic group, but as contributing members of the European Union. With that being said, there is much more that will need to be done in terms of 1. understanding what the exact problems associated with the Roma are, and 2. how to solve them.
European Commission. Tackling Discrimination: EU and Roma. 2014. http://ec.europa.eu/justice/discrimination/roma/index_en.htm.
McGarry, Aidan. "The Dilemma of the European Union's Roma Policy." Critical Social Policy (SAGE), 2012.
Potter, William C. "Issue Area and Foreign Policy Analysis." International Organization (The University of Wisconsin Press) 34, no. 3 (1980).
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