Samenvatting

The prejudice and discrimination against Roma started upon arrival in the 11th century. They were seen as untrustworthy due to the nomadic lifestyle and different skin colour. Roma were forced to live as slaves during the 1500 which ended several centuries later in 1864. Although, legally they were free they had no home or money and therefore their circumstances remained poor. During the Second World War, Roma were treated as Untermenschen and many of them were deported and massacred. The position of Roma improved when Romania came under the rule of Communism. It became policy to assimilate Roma by providing education, jobs and housing. After the fall of the Iron Curtain the position of Roma worsened again dramatically. When the economy was exhausted they were the first to loose their jobs and houses. Moreover, the population was looking for a scapegoat which resulted in pogroms and police raids against the minority.

According to the latest census in 2002 the Roma population in Romania was 2.5 percent. Due to underreporting in fear of discrimination the accurate percentage is more likely to be around 8 and 12 percent. Presently Roma are still facing many problems such as low education enrollment, high unemployment rates, bad health, housing problem and discrimination.

Since 2001 the government of Romania started actively undertaking actions by adopting the first comprehensive plan: the Strategy of the Government of Romania for the Improvement of the Condition of Roma'. The implementation of this Strategy turned out to be very weak due to ineffective structures, inadequate budget, low support of local authorities and a lack of data. To improve the implementation the National Agency for Roma was established in 2004 however, the results remained unsatisfactory.

In 2002 the National Council for Combating Discrimination was established to fight discrimination and to raise awareness. In 2005 Romania made a plan to take action against poverty in cooperation with the European Commission, this plan is called the Joint Inclusion Memorandum. In the Memorandum, special attention is given to Roma but compared to the Strategy no new measures are being mentioned.

In 2005 the Decade of the Roma inclusion 2005 - 2015 was established. The goal is combat the poor conditions of Roma together with nine European countries with a high Roma population. These countries are: Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia. The motivation of Romania regarding the Decade remains questionable. They showed engagement by hosting the first presidency but failed to provide the Decade Action Plan in which every country has to state their objectives. To date Romania is the only country that has not adopted the plan yet.

To ensure that other policy measures, made to improve the conditions of Roma, will succeed it is very important that Romania will learn from the mistakes made by the Strategy. This means that the administrative structures must be altered to become more successful. Romania must make more effort to collect data in order to monitor change. Furthermore, adequate budget must be made available to implement the projects and local authorities must be better controlled.

In the future the NCCD must make an effort to make themselves known to the public. In the sector of education segregation and the quality of schools must be addressed. Regarding health, the government must start a health prevention campaign. In addition, the issues concerning property right must be resolved.