The European Roma Information Office (ERIO) and the European Network Against Racism jointly produced a fact sheet on Political Participation of Roma in May 2007.

"In an ideal world the political establishment would accurately reflect the composition of the society it represents, and the issues facing all communities would be adequately reflected in the mainstream political debate. Thus in a European Union with an estimated Roma population of 10 million, one would expect 2% of political representatives to be from the Roma community. Likewise 16 of the 785 members of the European Parliament should come from the Roma community. However this picture is very far from reality."

To read more, download the PDF version of the fact sheet.

Mr. Riccardo Severi from Italian national radio channel Radio 1 Rai, as part of the broadcasting "Permesso di Soggiorno", interviewed ERIO Programme Assistant Anna D'Ambrosio about the fact sheet and Roma political Participation in Italy and Europe.

To listen to the radio segment (in Italian) go to:
http://www.radio.rai.it/radio1/permessodisoggiorno/view.cfm?Q_EV_ID=218901