On 15th October 2007 a group of more then fifty Members of the European Parliament sent a letter to Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša in addition to the 27 EU Prime Minister including the other four Prime Ministers of countries which implement the Decade of Roma inclusion.
The letter calls for increased EU political responsibility regarding the Roma situation in Europe and asks Prime Minister Janez Janša to introduce an EU annual conference to be organized during the Sloven Presidency.
"The Roma in the EU are victims of target racism (Anti-Gypsyism) and intolerance which translates into large-scale structural and institutional discrimination," say the Members of the European Parliament.
We believe with close political analyses, we will come to the conclusion that Roma are a kind of Invisible EU Member State. The Prime Minister of the EU Member States together with the EU institutions should start join initiatives that aim to stop the growing Anti-Gypsyism and develop tools to accelerate the social inclusion process of Roma in the European Union.
We would like to emphasize once more the necessity of introducing and organizing an EU conference on Roma during the Slovene Presidency. This initial step should be followed up with regular (annual) conferences organized by the European Union.
The question that we must ask, from the Romani Media and the Romani organizations is: do we really need yet another gabfest on the Romani People, or as, yet again, the European Union and Parliament erroneously state “Roma” (when will it be understood by those “idiots” - for lack of a better word – that we are NOT all Roma)? The answer is NO, we certainly do not need yet another conference. What we need is some real action but, when EU countries are in the process of developing concentration camps for Rom, as in Italy, or ghettos with eight foot walls topped with razor wire and a gate guarded by police (oh, but I forgot – this is to protect the Rom from fascist attacks), can we really expect more than just lip service from that combined EU body, including the Council of Europe and the Europeal Parliament? I guess not. What we, the Rom, must do is take matters into our own hands and force a change, by various means. However, as per usual, our so-called leaders do not manage to rally the troops for neither they, the leaders nor the troops want to actually do anything and what to have everything done for them.
M V Smith, October 2007
