EU urges end to exclusion of Roma in central Europe

(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission on Wednesday called on five states in Central Europe to do more for the Roma in order to meet national poverty reduction targets, saying members of the minority were European citizens like everyone else.

Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania need to "promote active measures" to put an end to the social exclusion of the Roma, the EU's Social Affairs Commissioner Laszlo Andor said at a briefing in Brussels.

Andor said that four of five Roma people in the European Union as a whole live in poverty, only one in three are employed and one out of two Roma children do not attend kindergarten.

"Member states, particularly those with large Roma populations, must urgently and forcefully promote" policies for inclusion of the often discriminated group, he said.

Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding also said at the briefing: "I know integration is not popular but it is necessary. Roma people are European citizens and member states have an obligation to stop their exclusion."

Reding pointed to a few positive examples of integration, saying the Romanian government had earmarked 150,000 places in schools, universities and vocational training programmes.

"The commitment is there but frankly there is a big gap between commitment and delivery," she said.

Roma integration: Progress Report 
and Recommendation