EUROPE

                                                                                   Europe's chance to stand with its Roma

FROM GUARDIAN.CO.UK

After much hypocrisy and inaction, it might still be possible for Europe to restore its commitment to equality for all its citizens

James A Goldston
 The Guardian,
 Saturday 20 November 2010

This could have been the shining moment when the European Union finally stood foursquare beside its Roma citizens. It could have been the moment that the European commission, the Council of Europe, and the alphabet soup of Euro-agencies stood up and said it is time to behave according to the fundamental European values everyone in Brussels and Strasbourg loves to talk about and to take the steps necessary to bring the Roma into European society.

The opportunity passed.

This autumn, the EU executive's justice and fundamental rights commissioner, Viviane Reding, described the government of France's expulsion of Roma in the starkest of terms. Reding said she was appalled by the treatment France meted out to the Roma. She said Europe had not witnessed this kind of behaviour since the second world war. "Enough is enough," Reding declared. "Fundamental values and European laws are at stake." On 29 September, the European commission formally announced its intention to launch infringement proceedings against France before the European court of justice.

The secretary general of the Council of Europe proposed a "high-level meeting on Roma and Travellers" in Strasbourg to discuss a range of ambitious aims, including the establishment of a European Observatory on Roma, the appointment of a high-level representative on Roma, and an action plan committing states to specific measures in education, health and employment. The date of the meeting was chosen to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the European convention on human rights.

Just as leaders were convening in Strasbourg, however, Reding announced in Brussels that the justice and fundamental rights commission would not, for the time being, pursue infringement procedures against France. Paris, she said, had "provided documents" indicating it would modify domestic laws on freedom of movement to conform with EU requirements.

The Strasbourg meeting accomplished next to nothing. France has done nothing to address the anti-Roma discrimination that sparked this controversy. The commission now seems unlikely to follow through with a case against France. Though technically investigations are under way, the commission has already stated: "Measures taken by the French authorities since this summer did not have the objective or the effect of targeting a specific ethnic minority." This is disingenuous. The reality is that, in government statements and written circulars, the government of France specifically targeted the Roma for heightened scrutiny.

Even after so much hypocrisy and inaction, it might be possible for a European body to restore Europe's commitment to equality for all.

On 30 November, the Council of Europe's governing body, the committee of ministers, has a chance to do so. It will take up discussion of a pernicious practice commonplace in several European countries: segregation of Roma children into separate, inferior schools and classrooms. The European court of human rights has condemned this practice in three landmark judgments against Croatia, the Czech Republic and Greece. To date, these rulings have been ignored.

The committee of ministers has the power to call publicly upon EU member-states to comply with the judgments of the European court of human rights. The right thing to do is obvious, but there are easily discernible reasons why the committee of ministers might refrain from doing what it should. Every government reasonably fears that, should it endorse criticism of a neighbour today, it might come under scrutiny tomorrow. So the committee of ministers prefers to operate in secret, and to move at a glacial pace, if at all.

Failing to do the right thing in this case would be short-sighted. It would further undermine the credibility of the EU and of the Council of Europe. It will help governments consign more generations of Roma children to an inferior education.

Shunting thousands of Roma children into second-class schools and classrooms each year perpetuates the social segregation of the Roma, which drives the westward migration that France, Italy and many of the more prosperous European countries recoil against. By failing to enforce these court's judgments, the committee of ministers is not only making itself a party to this discrimination against the Roma, it is helping to lay the groundwork for future crises.

The committee of ministers should do the right thing – for thousands of Roma children. And for a Europe that will be better off in the long run if it stands behind its declared values.