With what rights?” “

Following EU enlargement, a million and half new European citizens are Romanies. They live in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary. And with the future entry of Bulgaria and Romania into the EU their number is set to increase to some 4 million. In total there are some 9 million gipsies in Europe, present in almost all the member countries of the Council of Europe. The new European citizenship poses the problem of integration, which depends, according to the experts, especially on education. A report on the presence of gipsies in the EU is published in the last number of the bulletin of the Belgian association “Entraide d’eglises”, which is devoted to providing aid to the Churches and populations of Central and Eastern Europe. A new phenomenon among gipsies, according to “Entraide d’eglises”, is that of religious vocations: in Slovakia (90,000 Romanies officially registered in the last census, equivalent to 17% of the population, but leaders estimate 700.000 presences) there are five Basilian Sisters and seven future Romany priests in the Catholic seminary of Presov. But there are those who fear that, in the Europe of enlargement, Romanies will encounter restrictions to their right to free circulation and, even more so, their right to asylum. EDUCATION, KEY TO INTEGRATION. With regard to education, the evidence suggests that in the countries of Eastern Europe, “the children of the Romany minority often do not go to school or, due to their language problems, are isolated in special schools”. “Education represents a problem for Romanies – explains M.Ivanov, expert of the Bulgarian National Council for ethnic questions -. It is the origin of all their difficulties”. In Bulgaria, for example, 70% of Romany children attend separate classes. At times gipsy children are even sent to schools for the mentally disabled only because they speak the Bulgarian language badly. But the government had adopted an action programme aimed at creating mixed classes of which a third of the children are Romanies. In the Czech Republic 75% of Romany children attend special classes for “children with problems”. Hungary has promised to abolish all separate classes by 2008, while in Romania Romany children may study in their own language. In Slovakia the Romany language is not recognized as an educational language, though there do exist two experimental schools where this is possible. A common problem is that of school dropouts: in Romania children abandon school after the age of 10, and in Bulgaria they only complete primary school. In Slovakia, on the other hand, they study to the age of 16-17, and in Hungary to the age of 18-19. THE COMMITMENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AND COUNCIL OF EUROPE. The EU and the Council of Europe have long set up intergovernmental committees, groups of experts, and international foundations to pressure new member countries into taking the necessary measures to improve the living conditions of ethnic and cultural minorities, including Romanies. Significant EU budgetary allocations are made to combat anti-gipsy discrimination in Europe. In 1997 the European Commission examined the membership applications of various candidate countries, on the basis of the criteria defined by the European Council of Copenhagen in 1993, which prescribe in particular the need for candidate countries to have “stable institutions, able to guarantee democracy, the rule of law, human rights, respect for and protection of minorities”. In the course of this preliminary assessment in 1997, as in the annual reports drawn up for each candidate country, particular attention was paid to the problem of minorities. Partnerships for membership defined various priorities, such as the integration of Romanies in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungaria and Romania, the integration of non-citizens in Latvia and Estonia and the reinforcement of policies and institutions that protect the rights of minorities in Slovakia. These priorities are reformulated in relation to the progress achieved. But the European Commission now says that Romanies run the “risk of being victims of violence and discriminatory practices in schools” in the Czech Republic, “good intentions” but limited results in Poland, and “racially motivated violence” in Slovakia. In the European Parliament, too, MEPs have repeatedly condemned any form of discrimination, especially against gipsies. The Council of Europe has promoted and funded various projects in support of gipsies in Central and Eastern Europe. One of these projects – to help the member countries establish good relations between Romanies and the majority population – is based on the voluntary contributions of Finland, the Netherlands, the UK and Norway. One of the main objectives of the Council is to encourage countries to adopt “a global approach” to improve the various aspects of the daily life of Romanies.