European Forum

Conference in Belgrade: Strategies for Roma political inclusion in Western Balkans

On Saturday the 17th of April, the European Forum for Democracy and Solidarity and the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament (S&D Group) organized a conference in Belgrade, titled ‘Strategies for Roma Political inclusion in Western Balkans’. The main aim of the conference was to bring important (social) democratic political actors from the Western Balkans and the European Union together in order to discuss the current situation regarding Roma. Furthermore, representatives from the Roma community in Belgrade, experts from several NGO’s and political parties participated in the conference and discussed during the two panel discussions with each other about the current situation regarding Roma. Before the beginning of the conference, the participants visited a Roma community in Belgrade, Blok 67.

Visit to Roma community
The importance of addressing the serious issues with regard to the position of Roma in countries in the Western Balkans, became once more very clear during the morning, when a visit to a Roma community in Belgrade was planned. The circumstances in which the Roma in the settlement Blok 67 have to live, are very bad and unacceptable. The place lacks proper housing and basic facilities, while the living conditions are very unhygienic. Most people in Blok 67 aren’t registered as citizens and therefore have no access to legal jobs, education or the official healthcare system. The Roma in Blok 67 (and the other Roma in Belgrade and Serbia) are furthermore very often subject to discrimination and violence from both police and common Serbian citizens. Therefore, most of the Roma are very afraid to leave the settlement by daylight. If they leave Blok 67 it is usual to collect garbage which they recycle and try to sell on the streets by night.

After the visit to Blok 67 the conference started in Hotel Continental in Belgrade with opening speeches from the chairman of the conference and vice-president of the European Forum Jan Marinus Wiersma, chief of the Roma department of the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights of Serbia Ljuan Kca and vice-president of the S&D Group in the European Parliament Hannes Swoboda. The conference continued with two panel discussions.

Panel discussions
The subject of the first panel discussion of the conference was: “position of Roma in society and politics in the Western Balkans”. First speaker, Goran Basić professor at the University of Belgrade and Deputy Ombudsman for Minority Rights mentioned that Roma in several regions of the Western Balkans were better integrated in society than is now the case. From the nineties on however, this level of integration felt back significantly, according to Basić. 
The second speaker in the panel, Roma community representative Antun Čomka, stressed out that the lack of representatives from the Roma community, is forming an obstacle for the participation of Roma in politics. After this important statement by Čomka, Tom Kelly, country director Serbia for the National Democratic Institute (NDI) introduced the participants of the conference into the work the NDI has done and has planned with regard to the improvement of the position of Roma in Serbia.

In the second panel the central topic was “developing strategies for Roma political inclusion in Western Balkans”. Nura Ismailovski, councillor in Zagreb for the Social Democratic Party of Croatia, and Roma herself, spoke about the position of Roma in Croatia and despite certain improvements, criticized the major shortcomings in the policy of her country with regard to the Roma minority. After Ismailkovski, Detlev Boeing, Policy Co-ordinator in the Directorate-General for Enlargement of the European Commission, gave a very useful and interesting overview of the current situation with regard to Roma issues in the enlargement process. The last speaker was Tanja Vasic, representative of the NGO Demokratsko Udruženje Roma (DUR). Vasic passionately advocated changes from ‘the bottom to the top’ , where the Roma people must represent themselves, and not by people from the top of society. She furthermore stated that the Serbian state lacked social responsibility with regard to the Roma issues, accusing the Ministry of Human Rights and Minorities to do too little in order to really improve the situation of the Roma in Serbia.

A full and detailed report will be published on our website on short notice.