towards a better Europe   Return to the archives list Central European governments are proactively hiding the facts concerning human rights abuse* Today, in Brave New Europe Roma (Gypsy) children are disposable for financial gain Illustration by Zaafra Intentional non-observance of Article 13 In negotiating funding for Roma initiatives, Central European governments make use of various ploys to hide the true extent of the educational abuse of Roma children. One reason for hiding the facts would seem to be the fact that since the European Union introduced the Treaty of Amsterdam Article 13, local authorities throughout Central Europe have been taking advantage of a perverse financial incentive. This is provided by central government in the form of generous financial transfers to local authorities with children with "Special" educational needs. However, funds transferred are not used on the children concerned and who receve no education. Although Article 13 bans disrimination in any domain on any basis, the children to bare the brunt of this outrageous corruption have been Roma children. Their numbers in Special schools have doubled since Article 13 was introduced. Just to emphasise, rather than reverse this increase following the introduction of Article 13, government agencies have manipulated events to send more and more Roma children to Special schools; they have broken the law. Failure to keep up pressure concerning Special schools by Commission If one surveys official documentation with care it become apparent that the European Commission did raise the issue of the Special school numbers in a somewhat weak manner, but with time, the Country Progress Reports became somewhat ill-defined on this issue. Development of double-talk to hide the facts During the same period, and it is not clear if this is related, the means whereby these countries have effectively hidden these terrible facts is to hoodwink the European Commission. Use has been made of two pleas which use as their basis existing laws. One is to say that data protection laws prevent obtaining detailed information on the number of Roma in Special schools. The other one is to say that there are no statistics on ethnicity of children in schools, whether these be Special schools or Normal schools. Another variant is to state that ethnicity is a matter of personal option and therefore is not a basis for obtaining accurate statistics. These statements have become the standard response on the part of officials to anyone wanting to access accurate information. These facts essential but proactively hidden He loves the dog does anyone love him? Illustration by Zaafra The only basis upon which effective planning can be undertaken is for governments to make available better statistics on the numbers of Roma children in Special schools. All governments have accurate figures on the number of children in Special schools Although governments and educational agencies deny having such statistics, they in fact have them readily available. It is plainly obvious that they have such statistics because of the following reasons: Each year children are selected to be placed in Special schools These numbers are sent to the central government who draw up normative tables allocating funds at the rate of roughly Euro 1,750 per child per year These tables are then merged with local authority budget plans These budget plans are then sent back to local authorities by the ministries of finance The monies concerned are subsequently transferred from central budget to local authorities Therefore during this current year academic year (2002/2003) governments and educational authorities know full well how many children there are in Special schools. Also, they already have "estimates" for the numbers who will be accepted next academic year. Number of Roma children in Special schools - this is common local knowledge On the issue of ethnicity, it is well known throughout central Europe, that the majority of children in Special schools are Roma. This is common knowledge amongst the Roma themselves as well as amongst any observant member of ther mainstream public. No matter what a parent might chose as their ethnicity it seems to be somewhat striking that in rural reagions in excess of 95% of the children in Special schools have either the physical traits of Roma or indeed are Roma. Observing these facts are nothing to do with data protection, selection of ethnicity or not having statistics based upon ethnicity, they are common knowledge. Being common knowledge they are not subject to any of the legal restrictions or statistical inaccuracies claimed by Central European authorities. Clearly these arguments put up by governments to hide the facts are a massive dishonest sham. An example taken from European Commission documentation Currently, most Financing Memoranda between Central European Governments and the European Commission, which include Roma projects, stand as vivid examples of this type of misleading dishonesty. For example the Financing Memorandum between the European Community and the Hungarian government on their 2001 National Programme for Hungary, some Euro 89.8 million were provided as an "EC Grant". A small amount of this money, some Euro 5 million went towards a Roma initiative to which the Hungarian governemnt also provided Euro 5 million. This was subsequently bolstered by Euro 2.5 million of unallocated funds during 2002/3. The key statement which serves to show up either incompetence, or a desire to mislead, is the statement under the Background and justification for the Roma funding. The introductory paragraph reads as follows: "Both the 1993 Data Protection Act and the "right of free choice of identify" prevent the preparation of exact statistics on education and employment related to ethnicity. This, however, does not alter the fact that some trends in education and employment are considered to be apparent in Hungary." This kind of irresponsibility is an intentional under-estimation of needs Central European governments avoid the assessment of the true numbers and needs of Roma by hiding behind the statements cited above (data protection, choice of identity) when in fact they have the true facts readily available. The truth of the matter is that the sheer scale of the national funding for Special schools which is diverted away from Special schools is massive. This volume of funding has created a large and invisible lobby to keep things as they are, a lobby financed by the Special school funds. Making the European Union irrelevant to the Roma cause This abandonment of childrens' futures continues today Why does the European Union still tolerate this outrage? Illustration by Zaafra The result, for example in the case of Hungary, is that the European Union, in the Financing Memorandum referred to above, allocated Euro 5 million, and the Hungarian government Euro 5 million, to educational projects over a four year period. This works out at around Euro 2.5 million each year in total. The current rate of financial transfers, under the Special schools scheme, during this same period will have been something approaching or exceeding Euro 400 million. Remember, the Hungarian government has been "negotiating" with the European Commission for funding for the Roma and "succeeded in gaining an allocation of Euro 5 million. The Hungarian government generously allocated Euro 5 million to the same programme. Over the same period governemnt agencies have allocated some Euro 400 million to Special schools (within which some 98% of the children are Roma) and then diverted these funds away from Special schools, remaining largely unaccounted for. Theatre of dishonesty Central European governments have been adept at keeping the European Union at arms length and has prevented EU officials from gaining more detailed information on the Special schools and the numbers of Roma children in them. This is because they are seriously in breach of Article 13. It is also because this sacrifice of the futures of Roma children is good business. The final act, in this theatre of dishonesty is to pretend that national agencies have insufficient funds and to negotiate "assistance" from the European Union. This causes the European Union officials to become satisfied that they are contributing to solving the "Roma Problem" and thereby buys them into, commits them, into providing "support" for the ineffective solution of Roma problems as favoured by the governments concerned. It is readily apparent that the Central European governments do not need any money from the European Union. What is provided by the European Union accounts for approximately less than one half of one percent (0.35%) of the Special schools budgets. It becomes quite evident that the true intent of these governemnt agencies is to slow the whole process of change down, slow up integration, and keep making money out of the Roma from the Special school funding. Failure of European Union, that is the European Commission The European Commissioner on Enlargement often refers in his replies to questions on the Roma issue to the complexity of the issue, that it is a social issue, that it will take time to solve and he emphasises how much money the EU is providing to assist the Roma. This whole affair is clearly a farce and plays into the hands of the Central European governments and their agencies. In this way the European Union and, in particular, the European Commission is contributing to the support of this ongoing irresponsibility towards Roma children. The European Commission needs to register the fact that the so called "Roma Problem" has been, and continues to be, proactively manufactured and maintained by the very governments who express a desire to "solve the problem". The problem is not the Roma, the problem is the very institutions and individuals with whom the Commssison negotiates and who hold the Commisison in such contempt that they withold the true facts from them. Is the European Union colluding with this human rights abuse? The circumstances are so starkly obvious that it is not altogether clear if the European Union, in the form of European Commission officials, know what is going on or not. Without any doubt there is a massive dose of naivity within the Commission ranks from the Commisisoners right down to desk officers, in the face of the machinations of the governments concerned. This has resulted in a significant failure by the Commission in coming to grips with the full extent of the abuse of human rights actively "managed" by the very governments the same Commission is saying are ready for accession to the European Union. The result has been that the European Commission has failed in its duty to uphold the rights of the Roma in Central Europe and has failed to come up with practical actions on the scale necessary. It is timer the Commission did something useful and they might start by demanding the closure of all Special schools, the integration of all public schools and avoid opening "Special" streams. There is ample funding available to support such a rapid transition in the form of existing national Special school budgets. * Reproduced with the kind permission of the Management Committee of ECRE-European Committee on Romani Emancipation