Press Release on the Equality Summit

- Romanes version

Brussels, September 29^th, 2008 – The European Roma Information Office (ERIO) welcomes the Equality Summit in Paris, initiated by the French Presidency of the European Union. The event provides the perfect opportunity to a  large number of civil society representatives to gather with high level politicians and decision-makers for two days (Monday 29^th and Tuesday 30^th) to have a dialogue and discussion.

It is building up on such initiatives that Europe’s civil society movement could improve its action to defend the rights to equal treatment and non-discrimination in all the 27 EU countries. Since respect of equality is a Europe-wide issue, we need a European civil society joint action in order to promote broadly the principle of equal treatment and raise awareness among citizens about its importance in a European Union that wants to respect its own values.

On the other hand, we don’t have to applaud blindly the efforts of these high-profile initiatives such this one, because the French Presidency and all its European partners are not always the best example in promoting equal opportunities, non-discrimination and social inclusion.

Thursday September 25^th, the European Council of Ministers approved the Immigration Pact, an agreement that will tighten up the access of a huge number of poor, desperate and endangered people to the EU countries, including Roma from the Western Balkans. Asylum seekers and migrants will have more difficult life: European governments will consider them not as potential citizens or people in need but only as a good source of cheap labour. Migrants’ families will have more problems in reunification and their quest for a better life will be jeopardized by insurmountable red-tapes. These problems will be particularly harming for Roma from the Western Balkans, who already suffer difficult life conditions in countries like Italy, where they took shelter from the wars in the ‘90s in the former Yugoslavia block .

This attitude will create a Europe with first- and second-class citizens, where only skilled workers from outside Europe could find their place, leaving thousands of others without any hope. This approach bears very little in the sense of equality.

Roma and all socially deprived and excluded people alike need a more open and constructive approach. We hope that the Equality summit will give to the European non-discrimination movement a good momentum to build up a stronger advocacy for effective implementation of equal opportunity policies, at the same time to counter the sometimes populist and discriminating policies of the European governments.

Ivan Ivanov, ERIO’s executive Director stated: “Roma should get the most benefits from the anti-discrimination legislation, because they are the more discriminated and excluded ethnic group in Europe. For this same reason, Roma activists and organisations could and should be the driving force in the EU Equality Agenda. Finally, we have to remember that the final objective of our and policy-makers activity shall be the full social inclusion of discriminated groups as Roma, whose anti-discrimination rights are only the first step of their full citizenship status”.

For more inquiries contact ERIO’s Executive Director, Ivan Ivanov, : +32 473 823887