The European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) adopted, on Thursday 3 September, a resolution on combating negative attitudes towards Romani people in Europe by 52 votes to 9 with 5 abstentions.
The resolution, proposed by German MEP Romeo Franz (Greens/EFA) in his report on the implementation of national strategies for the inclusion of Romani people, will be put to the vote at the October plenary session.
The text recalls that a significant proportion of Romani people in Europe live in “extremely precarious” conditions, aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic. MEPs regret that the situation of the Romani people in the EU - between 6.2 and 6.3 million people - has not improved in recent years. They denounce a “lack of political will” in this regard as well as “structural anti-gypsyism”.
The resolution therefore calls on the Commission to present a proposal for a directive for the equality and integration of Romani people in Europe after 2020, “putting the fight against poverty and anti-gypsyism at the top of the agenda”.
This proposal, MEPs suggest, should include a plan to eliminate housing, health, employment and education inequalities, as well as specific binding objectives to improve inclusion.
Franz, on the other hand, insists in particular on the need to impose binding measures and targets on the Member States. Without this, nothing will change, he told the press on Friday morning, regretting that the strategies adopted over the last ten years have not had much positive effect.
The resolution also calls on the Commission to consider a new funding tool - linked to an existing educational and social funding programme - for quality education for Romani pupils “who face extreme poverty and do not have access to existing EU funding instruments in the field of education and social inclusion”.
Several recommendations are also addressed to Member States. They as well are requested to develop national strategies for the integration of Romani people and are called upon to officially recognise anti-gypsyism as a specific form of racism against Romani people. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)