Roma suffer most discrimination in EU - watchdog

Paul Taylor:

Roma minorities are the group most vulnerable to racism in the European Union since the bloc expanded into central Europe, an EU watchdog said on Wednesday.

In its annual report, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia said Roma -- also known as Gypsies -- faced discrimination in employment, housing and education, as well as being regular victims of racial violence.

"The particular histories and population characteristics of the new Member States mean that the Roma and people from the former (Soviet Union) are often the targets of racist sentiments and acts," the report said.

It said segregation in housing was particularly acute for the Roma population in the Czech Republic, Spain and Hungary.

Roma children were disproportionately concentrated in special education classes in several countries with an over-readiness to label them as educationally disabled or with learning difficulties.

The Vienna-based centre said the ethnic diversity of the EU had changed with enlargement in 2004. While western Europe had big ethnic minority communities of labour migrants and their descendants, who have been targets of racism, xenophobia and discrimination, eastern Europe did not have the same diversity.

By contrast, large Roma communities were found in the new member states of central and eastern Europe, notably the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.

"It is for this reason that so many of the...reports on the 10 new member states focus primarily or solely on issues of Roma ...When concerns of racism and discrimination are raised in the new member states, this is often the only group for which there are available and significant facts to relate," it said.

The executive European Commission pressed the newcomers to improve the legal rights and treatment of Roma minorities as a condition for joining the EU. Now they are members, they are subject to the same monitoring as old member states.

Of course, if the Roma find things so horrible in the European Union they could always go back to India where they came from originally.