Meeting of CAHROM
Skopje/Ohrid, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, 22-25 May 2012
Statement by John Warmisham Thematic Rapporteur on Roma/Travellers
Congress of Local and Regional Authorities Council of Europe on European Alliance of Cities and Regions for Roma Inclusion
Madam Chair,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
First of all, I regret not to have been able to participate in your previous meeting, but I know that the Congress Director, Ms Antonella Cagnolati, was there with you in Istanbul and presented to you the Summit of Mayors on Roma and its decision to set up a European Alliance of Cities and Regions for Roma Inclusion.
The reason behind that decision was that today, we see a growing number of initiatives, projects and even networks at local and regional levels for improving the situation of Roma. Some countries have established nation-wide municipal networks for Roma – such as in Greece, for example – while other municipal and regional networks and organisations are in the process of developing Roma-related activities, for example Eurocities, Intercultural Cities, European Forum for Urban Safety, Strasbourg Club, or Assembly of European Regions.
However, they all are limited in scope, with none of them operating Europe-wide; there is no mechanism for an exchange of information and good practices between them; and they have limited, if any, capacity to access EU funding designated for Roma activities. At the same time, national strategies for Roma inclusion requested by the EU will have to be implemented at local and regional levels, which will require substantial capacity-building for project implementation at the grassroots.
The initiative to establish a European Alliance of Cities and Regions for Roma Inclusion is meant to address these shortcomings. The Declaration adopted by the Summit of Mayors on Roma on 22 September 2011 in Strasbourg states that the Alliance must be “a framework for co-operation, sharing of good practices, strengthening local and regional capacities for action, identifying specific problems and proposing solutions, and helping to ensure funding for Roma activities at the grassroots level”.
This initiative also dovetails with the resolution and recommendation on the situation of Roma in Europe as a challenge for local and regional authorities, which was adopted by the Congress in October 2011 and which contains specific proposals for grassroots action as well as for national measures in a number of areas. The European Alliance will be a practical vehicle to drive the implementation of these proposals.
On 14 March this year, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted its reply to our Recommendation 315 on the situation of Roma in Europe, for which your opinion had been solicited beforehand. This is a very positive reply, in which the Committee of Ministers agrees that local and regional authorities have an important role to play in supporting Roma inclusion and that they should be given the capacity to effectively implement policies. In this reply, the Committee of Ministers welcomes our proposal to launch the Alliance, and also notes with interest our proposal to national governments to set up a European programme for capacity-building at local and regional level, to complement the Roma mediators training programme, ROMED. The Committee of Ministers feels these two proposals could be combined in their implementation.
This reply shows political support of Council of Europe member states to the Alliance initiative, and I would like to thank you, CAHROM members, for your favorable opinion on the Congress recommendation, which was taken into account by the Committee of Ministers.
I would like now to present in greater detail the current work on the Alliance project.
In the wake of the Summit, a Core Group of 11 cities and regions committed to building the Alliance and organising its launch in 2012 was set up. The Group has held two meetings so far, in December 2011 and in February 2012. The Core Group’s work is an excellent example of transversal co-operation between different stakeholders, because representatives of cities and regions are working together with the Congress; with the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Roma issues; with experts; as well as with institutional partners – in particular the Assembly of European Regions, Open Society Foundations and the European Commission. The modalities for the participation of Roma organisations and other civil society partners are also being discussed.
The Group has marked considerable progress in defining the concept and mandate of the future Alliance, as well as the range and type of activities that it will carry out. It has been agreed the Alliance will be a flexible framework for exchanges of experiences and provision of specific services, a kind of “partnership network” serving as a platform not only for individual cities and regions but also for existing networks and initiatives in the field of Roma inclusion. It will be based on a peer-to-peer approach focusing on responses to specific needs of each community in a manner which could be described as “à la carte” rather than “one size fits all”.
Essentially, the Alliance will have two major functions: to serve as a platform for exchanging information, based on practices and support for mutual learning; and to be a service provider and support mechanism for cities and regions – as a space for mutual advice and practical support, for promoting existing policies and projects, and for securing sources of funding.
Its activities will be both thematic, focusing on specific areas – such as education, housing, health care, employment, etc. – and transversal, mainstreaming into general policies specific issues such as empowerment and participation, access to public services and to EU funding, women and young people, the question of rights, duties and responsibilities, etc. The types of activities will be adapted to objectives which have been set, and will include seminars and workshops, study visits and peer reviews, studies and access to individual expertise, training and information sessions, a transfer of methodologies between cities, and so on.
The main objectives of the Alliance will be to improve local and regional capacity for project implementation and to help secure funding for these projects, in particular from EU and international donors. We have already received a strong expression of support for the Alliance project from several Council of Europe member states. The European Commission, which over the past few months has received the National Strategies for Roma Inclusion of its member States, has also expressed interest. I would add that the Alliance is particularly timely in this regard as the new programming period of the European Structural Funds will start in 2014, with a particular emphasis on the involvement of local and regional authorities in achieving Roma inclusion.
In March, we sent out a questionnaire to a wide selection of cities and regions to assess their concrete needs and priorities and to establish their preferences in the type of activities the Alliance should implement. The preliminary results are encouraging: together with the Core Group members, some one hundred cities and regions expressed an interest in joining the Alliance. An overwhelming majority identified education as a priority area of concern, and most respondents stressed the need for exchanges of information and transfer of methodologies, study visits and thematic seminars as preferred types of activity.
The questionnaire was sent to local and regional authorities in 43 European countries; it was addressed to those communities that were invited to take part in the Summit and that are participating in the ROMED programme. Apart from the Core Group members, we have received so far 103 replies from local and regional authorities in 26 countries, of which 91 respondents expressed their interest in joining the Alliance. Most respondents – 88 – are municipal authorities, in particular mayors or deputy mayors, including several capital cities such as Berlin, Budapest, Lisbon, Belgrade, Vilnius, Barcelona and Tirana.
For what concerns the priority issues that were selected among a list of proposed topics in the field of Roma inclusion, the fields “education” and “employment” counted the highest number of preferences, respectively 78.6% and 74.8%. Also the entry “housing” registered a good level of interest among respondents (60.2%).
Among transversal issues, the field “access to national/EU funding for projects” attracted the highest level of interest, accounting for 47.6% of the preferences. Furthermore, the following transversal issues were selected by a substantial number of respondents:
o “strategies for preventing harmful practices (early marriages, domestic violence, begging, trafficking etc)” (45.6%)
o “rights, duties and responsibilities” (45.6%)
o “empowerment and participation of the Roma community” (41.7%)
o “security and public order issues (crime, violence, intercultural conflicts and incidents management)” (39.8%)
As regards the indication of the types of activity deemed to be the most relevant in the field of Roma inclusion, most preferences went to the “exchange of good practices” (87.4% of the total number of replies). The following topics were also mentioned by many respondents:
o seminars/workshops (61.2%)
o twinning, transfer of methodologies (61.2%)
o study visits to cities/regions (55.3%)
o European database of good practices on Roma inclusion (53.4%)
Our next steps in building the Alliance will be geared in the direction of these needs and priorities indicated by the respondents. We are currently holding consultations with various stakeholders both within and outside the Council of Europe – in particular the European Commission – and are planning for the launch and first activities of the Alliance in the second half of this year. The first activities will most probably focus on one or more of the three highest priorities identified, which is education, employment and housing.
In addition, we are also planning specific action for Roma youth in the future work of the Alliance. It is clear that education and vocational training are of paramount importance to acquiring skills and finding a job. These have a direct link to other crucial areas such as housing and health care. It is also clear that if we are to bring about change in the future, we must also focus on the younger Roma generations who not only suffer from the same anti-Gypsyism and discrimination as their elders but are also caught between the expectations of their families and communities and the stigmatisation of the majority society. This is why, as a next concrete step, the Current Affairs Committee of the Congress has decided to prepare a report on the situation of young Roma in Europe in the framework of the Council of Europe’s Roma Youth Action Plan, which will be a fist follow-up to our broad first report on the situation of Roma and which is scheduled to be adopted next year.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In conclusion, I would like to stress that all indications show that our initiative to establish the Alliance is timely indeed. It is timely because the situation of Roma remains an affront to our democratic ideals and values. It is timely because national strategies for Roma inclusion, requested by the European Union, will have to be implemented in our local and regional communities. Finally, it is timely because there is an “awakening” at European, national and grassroots levels that something has to be done to improve the situation, and numerous activities are already underway.
I would like to thank the CAHROM members for the support you have already given to the Alliance initiative which, I am sure, will continue in the future. We strongly hope for your active contribution to the activities of the Alliance.
Thank you.