Education
 Hector McNeill
ECRE |
"The European Council of Madrid of December 1995 established conditions on pre-accession criteria as a basis for establishing the mutual trust required by EU membership.
The European Commission has failed to act on those conditions in the case of the Roma. This has lead directly to a serious damage to the levels of trust the general European public has for certain* accession governments.
This off-handed treatment of the Roma, our largest minority, by the European Commission, places any claims by the European Union to be a world player in Human Rights in serious doubt."
* The countries concerned are the Czech republic, Hungary and Slovakia. |
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Segregated Romani Schooling - Inverview Part I
Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) a British legal practice have sent a letter to the European Commission requesting that they terminate segregated schooling for Roma and, in particular, effective denial of education in the Czech republic, Hungary and Slovakia.
PIL are acting for the European Committee on Romani Emancipation who maintain that the European Commission has failed to act, during a period of some eight years, according to European Council instructions. Romani World has interviewed Hector McNeill, who is the member of the European Committee on Romani Emancipation responsible for Central Europe, to find out some of the details of this case. This is the first part of a 5 part inverview (these interviews have been syndicated) which can be accessed here:
RomaniWorld: We understand that the European Commission has not taken any action in response your letters and reports since 1999 and have also not replied to any substantive issue raised. So what is the Commission obliged to do?
McNeill: The Copenhagen Council of December 2002, stated that monitoring up to accession of the commitments, undertaken by accession governments, would give further guidance to the acceding states in their efforts to assume responsibilities of membership. They stated that this would give the necessary assurance to current Member States. This Council also stated that the Commission would make the necessary proposals on the basis of the monitoring reports. To date, there is no record of any practical proposals from the Commission on how these governments should terminate their discriminatory behaviour.
RomaniWorld: But they do mention the issue of Roma discrimination in their Country reports
McNeill: The Commission has produced progress reports since 1998 and following the 2002 Copenhagen Council they produced a Final Comprehensive Report (FCR) and country specific reports. In all of these reports, the Commission has never identified and reported that the principal source of Roma discrimination is government, governmental institutions and their associated structures. Report content borders on the amateur and has been limited to vague, repetitive, unstructured and often unrelated references to widespread discrimination against the Roma; this is of no analytical use, it simply does not constitute professional work.
This Hungarian Romungro brother and sister of normal intelligence are condemned to segregation and denial of education in Europe of 2004 ! |
RomaniWorld: But the Compenhagen Council has, as you note, asked the Commission to make the necessary proposals on the basis of the monitoring reports.
McNeill: Yes, but the Commission has failed to act. They have made no proposals.
RomaniWorld: In preparing for this interview we noted that, in the Commission's Final Comprehensive Report, they say that the Commission is determined to take the appropriate measures to safeguard the functioning of the Union in all areas. It also states that monitoring has enabled the Union to conduct and conclude the accession negotiations in parallel with, and on the basis of real progress on the ground in the countries concerned.
McNeill: In the case of the Roma this is a misrepresentation of the facts. The Commission has failed to take any appropriate measure. In practical terms there have been no changes on the ground. Indeed, the situation on the ground has got steadily worse throughout the monitoring and negotiating period. More specifically, the most drastic decline in the condition of Roma education took place during the mandate of this Commission (1998/2004).
RomaniWorld: But in their Final Comprehensive Report, the Commission states that its services have closely monitored progress in the acceding countries in the course of this year and have provided the Council with the necessary information.
McNeill: Again a serious misrepresentation of the facts in the case of Roma education. There is no record of the Commission providing the Council with any details of the massive systematic institutional discrimination carried out by these governments and their civil servants on such a sustained and large scale against the Roma. I should add the absence of useful and objective reporting to the Council applies to all issues affecting the Roma. This sort of reporting has all the hallmarks of discriminatory treatment of the Roma.
RomaniWorld: This Commission seems to have failed to perform. Are there any key areas where the Commission has slipped up.
Educational prospects?
Rural Romungro boy,
living in Hungary
probably nil |
McNeill: First of all, this cannot be termed slipping up. This is a failure to inform, or better, an intentional misrepresentation of the full facts. Why do I say intentional? The Commission has been aware of the facts for a considerable time but do not report them.
With respect to your question, these governments have failed to ensure appropriate adjustments in implementing structures, administrative capacity and enforcement. The Commission states that their individual Comprehensive Monitoring Reports, which accompany their Final Comprehensive Report, assess, for each of the 29 chapters of the acquis, the state of preparedness in the respective acceding countries. This is both in terms of transposition of legislation and from the perspective of implementing structures, administrative capacity and enforcement. Once again, there is no record of the Commission undertaking any appropriate analysis as to the causes or identifying any specific options as a basis for preparing and issuing proposals on how to remove the current practices within state implementing structures and administrations. Today civil servants still continue to knowingly sustain systematic institutional discrimination against the Roma.
RomaniWorld: But what pre-accession criterion states that?
McNeill: This is not so much a pre-accession criterion, it is more a condition to which all criteria must adhere. This condition was clearly established by the Madrid Council of December 1995. This condition is known as the Madrid condition. If I may be permitted to expand on that. The Madrid European Council made the crucial contribution of conditioning pre-accession criteria by deciding that membership also requires that the candidate country create the conditions for its integration through the adjustment of its administrative structures. In other words besides transposing European Community legislation into national legislation, it is even more important that the legislation is implemented effectively through appropriate administrative and judicial structures. An important emphasis for justification of these conditions was that this is a prerequisite of the mutual trust required by EU membership.
Unfortunately since Madrid, the European Commission has consistently failed, in the case of educational provisions for Roma, to do anything in practical terms. We now find, as a result of the Commission's failing to act over a period of eight years, that these governments have openly and systematically expanded the numbers of Roma children segregated and denied useful education. With respect to the Madrid conditions, this systematic institutional discrimination is sustained and funded by government policies, it is managed directly by staff and employees of central and local governments and these children and kept in government installations.
The Commission has clearly failed to act and the transpositions of relevant legislation has not been accompanied by effective support in the form of appropriate structures and changes in administrative behaviour.
The European Council of Madrid of December 1995 established conditions on pre-accession criteria as a basis for establishing the mutual trust required by EU membership. The European Commission has failed to act on those conditions in the case of the Roma. This has lead directly to a serious damage to the levels of trust the general European public has for certain accession governments. This off-handed treatmnent of the Roma, our largest minority, by the European Commission, places any claims by the European Union to be a world player in Human Rights in serious doubt.
RomaniWorld: Thank you.
PIL - Public Interest Lawyers - One of the leading Human Rights practices in the United Kingdom. PIL have a track record of successful resolutions of human rights cases. PIL have won a series of high profile cases including the illegality of the Iraq war case against the British Government, the high profile Ghurka troops case relating to failure to pay adequate pensions brought against the British Ministry of Defense and the recent Ghost Ships case. (return to the top)
The full content of the letter to the Commission can be viewed at:
http://www.eu-romani.org/pil001.htm (return to the top)
Hector McNeill - Hector McNeill is a development economist. A Cambridge graduate with post graduations from Cambridge and Stanford Universities, Hector McNeill has been associated with voluntary service to low income communities for over 30 years. He has worked with the National Research Council, NASA, United Nations Food & Agricultural Organization, ICO, Manpower Services Commission, European Commission and the World Bank. He has been the projects coordinator of SEEL (Systems Engineering Economcis Lab) since 1984. He was a joint founder of ECRE and currently manages ECRE's Central European affairs in a voluntary capacity. (return to the top)
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