Brussels, 08/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 8 April, International Roma Day, several associations were critical of the weakness of European action on behalf of the Roma and more specifically for the NGO Amnesty International, the failure of a European project to resettle Roma in Serbia, where the millions of euro spent have not brought the expected results in terms of building of housing.
Eurodiaconia, a network of diaconal organisations in Europe fighting poverty and social exclusion, says that the Roma remain among the most vulnerable and most marginalised communities despite “positive developments”, such as the adoption of an EU framework for national Roma integration strategies. “Roma keep being expelled from Western or Northern host countries to their countries of origin, regardless of their European rights as the great majority of them are European citizens”, Eurodiaconia states. Neither are the causes of their emigration from those countries properly addressed. Beyond social protection and assistance, Eurodiaconia would also like to stress the need to “involve Roma communities more strongly in decision-making processes” and no longer treat them as “passive receivers of services which affect them without involving them”.
In a press release, Amnesty International highlights a project around Belgrade, partly funded by the European Commission. To date, this project has not met its objectives due to a “toxic combination of bureaucratic incompetence, inertia and discrimination” that has resulted in the failure of a multi-million euro European Commission funded project, Amnesty states. The project was to resettle families forcibly evicted from Belgrade and to construct housing that complies with standards. However, “the majority of these families are still living in squalid racially segregated metal containers”, Amnesty has discovered. “Despite commitments from the City of Belgrade and €3.6 million funding from the European Commission (allocated in April 2012), not one of the planned new housing blocks has been finished”, the NGO states. (Solenn Paulic)