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Romani Studies , Vol. , No. (), – – (print) – (online)
doi: ./rs..
I benefited greatly from the opportunity to present earlier versions of this article at Annual
World Convention of the Association for the Study of the Nationalities in New York, the Annual
Conference of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies in Cambridge,
the Romani Mobilities in Europe Conference in Oxford, and the Annual Conference of the
Gypsy Lore Society in Helsinki. In particular, I am grateful for the comments I received from
omas Acton, Stephen Deets, Martin Kovats, Yaron Matras, Aidan McGarry, Vera Messing,
Mária Neményi, Guido Schwellnus, Eva Sobotka, Nidhi Trehan, Peter Vermeersch, as well as
the reviewers of Romani Studies.
Márton Rövid is a PhD candidate at the Department of International Relations and European
Studies of Central European University. Email: marton.rovid@gmail.com
One-size-ts-all Roma? On the normative dilemmas
of the emerging European Roma policy
MÁRTON RÖVID
e article discusses three moral and political dilemmas that arise in the context of the
emerging European Roma policy, and on which all concerned parties, including grass-
roots Romani organisations, should be able to express their views. e rst dilemma
is whether anti-discrimination measures based on universal individual rights are suf-
cient to promote the social inclusion of Roma, or whether policies based on group-
dierentiated minority rights are required to ensure the exercise of their fundamental
human rights. Even though there appears to be a consensus on the insuciency of
the former approach, it is unclear exactly what kinds of minority rights should be
promoted, which leads us to the second dilemma: generic versus targeted minority
rights. e third dilemma is whether to recognise Roma as a national minority or as a
non-territorial nation. e article argues that the notion of non-territorial nation can
be debated on anthropological, political and moral grounds.
Keywords: Roma policies, self-determination, anti-discrimination, desegregation,
minority rights, non-territorial nation, normative dilemmas, recognition, integration
As I write this article in March , the Hungarian public sphere is ooded
with articles, reports, and demonstrations discussing crimes committed by or
against Roma. e former refers to Gypsy criminality and openly stigmatises
an entire ethnic group, whereas the latter draws our attention to the increas-
ing pervasiveness of racist discourses and a series of crimes committed against
Romani people since January , including incidents in which Roma
houses being rebombed and two attacks on Roma homes with hand grenades
in which at least ve people of Romani origin were killed (ERRC ).
. In Hungarian, cigánybűnözés.
e tense atmosphere does not facilitate reection on questions of social
inclusion and self-determination in the context of an emerging European
Roma policy. e criminalisation of the problem drastically shrinks the space
for moral argumentation on questions of justice (Kis : ). is article
grew out of the conviction that democratic discussion of the dilemmas of
social inclusion and self-determination diuses discourses of fear and threat.
e article aims to contribute to the discussion on the emerging European
Roma policy by highlighting and analysing some of the ethical and polit-
ical dilemmas that policy-makers and civil activists face when promoting
the social inclusion and self-determination of Roma. ese dilemmas can be
translated into European policy options on which all concerned parties, espe-
cially grassroots Romani organisations, will be able to deliberate. In particu-
lar, three dilemmas are presented (i) the relation of self-determination to
anti- discrimination; (ii) the question of Roma specic norms and policies;
and (iii) the dilemma of whether the Roma should be recognised as a national
minority or as a non-territorial nation. Before discussing the dilemmas, their
international context is presented.
e international context
International actors play a crucial role in the codication, spread and accept-
ance of norms in relation to Roma. International governmental and non-
governmental actors can promote three kinds of norm: the protection of
fundamental human rights; generic minority rights; and Roma-specic norms.
In addition to the general human-rights regime based on the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, a comprehensive international legal and institu-
tional framework has developed in the last to years aiming at the protec-
tion of the rights of minorities.
e United Nations adopted a Declaration on the Rights of Persons
Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities in
as well as other intergovernmental organisations, such as the United Nations
Educational, Scientic and Cultural Organization (), the International
Labour Organization and the World Bank, have developed norms on minority
or indigenous rights. Declarations have also been draed by organisations at
the regional level, such as the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention
for the Protection of National Minorities and the Organization of American
States’ dra Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Besides the general minority rights regime, a separate network of institu-
tions has emerged dealing specically with the Roma – comprising special
bodies under the auspices of international organisations such as the Council
of Europe, the OSCE and the EU, as well as international NGOs such as the
---
European Roma Rights and the European Roma Information Oce.
Until the s, European international organisations paid little attention
to Roma. e few documents that these organisations produced referred to
Roma as ‘travellers’, ‘nomads’ or ‘a population of nomadic origin’. However,
in less than a decade, the Roma developed from nomadic people into ‘a true
European minority’, specialised committees and organs were set up within
European organisations to deal specically with Roma, and one of the central
issues in the process of the EU’s Eastern enlargement was the position of Roma
in candidate the countries.
e initiative of the Decade of Roma Inclusion – launched in – seeks to
integrate and coordinate these diverse declarations, actors and policies within
one framework. By March , states joined the initiative on a voluntary
basis. However, the participants of the programme demand that the EU play
a more active role, as a result of which a European Roma Summit was held on
September in Brussels, where, amongst others, José Manuel Barroso,
Jacques Barrot, George Soros and Vladimir Spidla expressed their views on the
future of a European Roma Policy.
It is important to note the special role of the European Union in this con-
stellation. As a sui generis quasi-supranational organisation, the EU’s com-
petencies and capacities stretch beyond that of all other inter-governmental
organisations in at least three ways.
() e EU provides a comprehensive legal framework complementing
regular international public law. e so-called Anti-discrimination and
Citizenship directives are of particular importance in relation to Roma.
() e EU has substantial nancial instruments overshadowing those of
inter-governmental organisations. e Structural and Cohesion Funds
redistribute billion between and . Within the Structural
Funds, the European Social Fund – with an overall budget of billion for
the same period – is supposed to endorse the social integration of Roma.
. See for instance the following documents of the Council of Europe: Assembly Recom men-
dation () on the situation of Gypsies and other travellers in Europe; Committee of
Ministers Resolution () on the social situation of nomads in Europe; Recommendation
() on stateless nomads and nomads of undetermined nationality; Standing Conference of
Local and Regional Authorities of Europe Resolution () on the role and responsibility
of local and regional authorities in regard to the cultural and social problems of populations of
nomadic origin.
. Council of Europe, Assembly Recommendation () on the Gypsies of Europe.
. Such as the Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues within OSCE and the Group of Specialists
on Roma within the Council of Europe.
. Council Directive //EC of June implementing the principle of equal treat-
ment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin.
. Directive //EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of April on the
right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the
territory of the Member States.
() e EU provides an institutional framework for policy coordination and
learning in such crucial areas as social inclusion, employment, health care,
and education.
is article does not focus on the specic role and instruments of the European
Union; rather it analyses general normative dilemmas that emerge in the
broader European public sphere consisting of a network of the international
organisations mentioned earlier, NGOs, expert bodies, etc.
Self-determination versus anti-discrimination
e question of whether to focus () on the promotion of the civic equality and
the protection of the fundamental human rights of Romani peoples, or () on
their self-determination and autonomy, poses a dilemma for activists, policy-
makers and scholars alike.
() e rst grassroots Roma organisations struggling for civic equali-
ty for Roma emerged in the rst half of the twentieth century on the Balkan
Peninsula because given that in the Ottoman Empire Gypsies had been enjoy-
ing civil rights since the eenth century – unlike the Gypsies in Central and
Western Europe, who beneted much later – and had the civil consciousness
and ability to ght for their rights (Marushiakova and Popov : ). By
the s, Romani organisations of a more collective form started to function
in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Romania and Greece. ese organisations published
their own periodicals; oered mutual assistance in sickness and death; and
promoted the education of Gypsy youth (Marushiakova and Popov : ).
However, both national and international Romani political aspirations were
crushed during the Second World War. e systemic persecution and extermi-
nation of Roma le the nascent modern Romani activism paralysed for over a
decade aer the war (Klímová-Alexander : ).
From the s Romani political activism gradually revived through-
out Europe, and it boomed in the s. e human-rights discourse was
reinforced in the early s by reports of such internationally renowned
NGOs as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
In the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) was founded, the para-
digmatic representative of the anti-discrimination approach. ERRC is “an
international public interest law organisation working to combat anti-Romani
racism and human rights abuse of Roma through strategic litigation, research
and policy development, advocacy and human rights education” (see http://
errc.org/en-about-us-overview.php).
. Torture and ill-treatment of Roma, ; Turning the blind eye to Racism, ; Broken commit-
ments to human rights, .
---
e strategy of anti-discrimination is oen inspired by the African-
American civil-rights struggles and refers to the UN’s Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Accordingly, ‘civil rights’
and ‘equality’ are interpreted in the context of anti-discrimination and deseg-
regation.
() As opposed to the anti-discrimination approach that stresses the civic
equality and integration of Roma into mainstream society, the discourse of
self-determination underscores the importance of recognising that Roma are
dierent and of advocating various forms of autonomy. e roots of the inter-
national struggle for the self-determination of Roma can be traced back at least
to the s, when the United Nations inspired the creation of a number of
international Romani umbrella organisations to promote the interests of the
world’s Roma through UN instruments and structures. ese organisations
worked towards the legitimisation of Roma as a nation with the right to a state
by creating and promoting national culture. Although the goals of improving
living standards and cultural and moral upliing of the Roma were usually
declared, they have always remained secondary to the nationalist aspirations
(Klímová-Alexander : ).
By the s these attempts crystallised into the First World Romani Congress,
held in April , near London, attracting participants from Western, Central
and Eastern Europe as well as from Asia and North America. e Congress
was formally organised by the Comité International Rom (an organisation that
had been founded in Paris in ) (Acton and Klímová-Alexander : );
and it was funded by the World Council of Churches and the Indian govern-
ment (Fosztó : ).
e delegates of the First World Romani Congress adopted a national ag
and a hymn, and agreed on the dissemination of a new ethnic label. Hence the
term ‘Roma’ was constructed as the ocial name to capture a variety of com-
munal-based identities across dierent countries (Courthiade ). e main
concepts were the principle of amaro Romano drom (‘our Romani way’) and
the phrase ‘our state is everywhere where there are Roma because Romanestan
is in our hearts’ (Marushiakova and Popov : ). Expressing a powerful
feeling of unity, they declared that ‘All Roma are brothers’ (Liégeois : ).
. According to Acton and Klímová-Alexander (: ), representatives of fourteen coun-
tries participated, whereas Marushiakova and Popov argues that “documents of the congress
listed delegates from eight countries, two out of which from Eastern Europe (Yugoslavia and
Czechoslovakia) and observers.”
. e rst congresses were organised “with the support of Evangelical churches working among
the Gypsies, the Pentecostal church in particular. Later on the dierent Evangelical churches
lost interest in the world Romani movement though they are still active among the Gypsies.”
(Marushiakova and Popov : ).
In addition, commissions for social aairs, war crimes, language standardi-
sation and culture were established (Fosztó : ). It was also decided that
April, the date on which the Congress was opened, should become Roma
Day, henceforth to be celebrated annually. A single slogan summed up the
Congress: ‘e Rom people have the right to seek out their own path towards
progress’ (Liégeois : ).
Until now, six World Romani Congresses have been held. Of particular
importance is the fourth Congress held in Poland in , which adopted the
manifesto ‘Declaration of Nation’ to be analyzed in relation to the third dilemma.
is dilemma, whether to promote the civic equality or the self-determination
of Roma, can be illustrated with the issue of education in the Romani lan-
guage. Some Romani leaders support it because they believe it would strength-
en the ethnic identity of Roma communities, whereas others are opposed to
classes in Romani because they feel that they would further increase the social
distance between Gypsies and gadje, diminishing the Roma’s chances on the
labour market (Bárány : ).
In general, the discourse of desegregation is adequate for minorities that
were involuntarily excluded from common institutions on the basis of per-
ceived race or ethnicity. However, numerous minorities are in the opposite
position: they have been involuntarily assimilated and stripped of their
own language, culture and self-governing institutions. ese groups need
counter-majoritarian protections, not solely in the form of anti-discrimination
and undierentiated citizenship, but also various group-dierentiated minor-
ity rights (Kymlicka : ). At least three critiques have been raised against
the self-determination approach.
(i) It is oen argued that the focus on self-determination leads to the neglect
of problems of discrimination. Klímová points out that the remedy and pre-
vention of human-rights abuses are secondary to the goal of recognition of
political statues which the International Romani Union sees as stepping stone
for the rest of its goals.
Consequently, very little has been achieved in these areas. Only miniscule nancial
and virtually no institutional support for Romani culture and language and education
of Romani children and youth has been solicited directly from the UN system. e UN
has not helped to further the cause of symbolic and nancial Holocaust reparations. It
only recently started encouraging states to address Romani social and economic prob-
lems and its own funding of projects towards this end has been minimal. It is only the
pro-Romani ERRC that actually systematically brings concrete violations of the rights
of Roma in various countries to the scrutiny of the UN human rights treaty bodies.
(Klímová-Alexander , )
. e most frequently cited examples are the Catalonians and the Hungarian communities
living in Hungary’s neighbouring countries.
---
(ii) Similarly, the discourse of self-determination may be easily interpret-
ed as contributing to the ethnicisation of social problems, thus undermining
inter-ethnic solidarity.
e promotion of some essential ‘dierence’ between ‘Roma’ people and everyone else
in society exploits traditional prejudices and low expectations. ‘Dierence’ is used to
explain Roma impoverishment, social tension and conicts, migration, and the failure
of ‘integration’ initiatives. It conserves the political isolation of ‘Roma’ people and sup-
ports the ideology of segregation. (Kovats )
(iii) Moreover, it is cheaper to promote the ethnic dierence of Roma than
to improve the living conditions of the masses of Roma who lost their jobs.
In return, the human rights/anti-discrimination discourse are oen criti-
cised for neglecting economic and social processes other than discrimination
that contribute to the marginalisation of Roma.
(i) Attributing social disadvantage to racism diminishes the elite’s responsi-
bility by blaming popular prejudices for their failure to act (Kovats ).
(ii) e accountability of human rights NGOs can be debated, especially in
the case of ‘high prole NGOs [. . .] that lack grass-roots constituencies, being
founded or funded by NGO representatives and private foundations’ (Trehan
: ). ese organisations are not accountable ‘to any constituency apart
from the limited number of Western donors, who oen subscribe to agendas
that may or may not reect the most critical needs of the communities in ques-
tion’ ().
(iii) e misery of large numbers of Roma cannot entirely be explained by rac-
ism. Following the collapse of communism and the restructuring of national
economies, most Eastern European Roma suddenly fell out of the legal labour
market and started gradually sliding out of the society. e neo-liberal tran-
sition led to the formation of an underclass, that is, both economically and
socially excluded populations were locked out of civil society and class struc-
ture (Szelényi and Ladányi ).
Is it possible to weigh the relevance and (unintended) consequences of these
discourses against one another? Are they inevitably mutually exclusive or can
they complement or even reinforce each other? One can argue that the right
to self-determination, that is, minority rights, will ensure equality in the exer-
cise of human rights. In eect, minority rights remedy the discrimination of
minorities resulting from the ethnic bias of legislation. For instance, the right
to be educated in one’s mother tongue guarantees the fundamental human
right to education for members of linguistic minorities.
. In particular, individual minority rights (accorded to members of minorities), not so much
collective minority rights (accorded to minority groups).
However, there are cases when minority rights cannot serve the purposes
of anti-discrimination, since the two approaches determine its subjects from
dierent perspectives. Self-determination presumes the freedom of choosing
one’s membership in a group, whereas discrimination is the imposed exclusion
of someone from the group. e ideal of self-determination stipulates that the
boundaries of the group ‘Roma’ are determined by the concerned individual or
group. On other hand, anti-discrimination policies tackle the problem of exclu-
sion of persons who are perceived as Roma. In other words: who is inside and
outside the group will vary depending on who makes the classication. Non-
Roma may classify subjects as Roma if they t some stereotypes: being poor,
demonstrating signs of a ‘Roma lifestyle’, etc. (Szelényi and Ladányi ).
Minority rights can ensure equality only in the exercise of human rights if
the discriminated subject is the same as that of self-determination. However,
Szelényi and Ladányi’s cross-national study found that in all the investigated
countries – Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia and Slovakia – only
a proportion of people perceived as Roma identify themselves as Roma; for
instance, . per cent in Hungary as opposed to . per cent in Bulgaria.
Perceived
Roma Self-identied
Roma
F . Romani exceptionalism
e right to establish special schools for Romani children, such as the
Gandhi High School in Hungary, does not remedy the segregation of those
Romani students who would like to have access to the same schools as non-
Romani children.
In several policy areas it is a genuine dilemma whether to promote the civic
inclusion of Romani peoples in common institutions and opportunities strug-
gling against racial exclusion or to protect the culture, language and customs
of Romani peoples from assimilation and majority institutions.
It has to be noted that the thin line between accommodation and assimila-
tion of minority cultures is necessarily debated. For instance, optional Romani
language lessons in majority schools could be seen as sucient to protect
Romany language, whereas others may argue for separate schools for Romani
children where all the classes are held in Romany and special emphasis is laid
on Romany history and culture (in regions where Roma children speak rst
and foremost Romany and could be disadvantaged when made to study in
other languages).
---
Generic versus targeted minority rights
If one argues that only minority rights can ensure equality in the exercise of the
fundamental human rights of Roma, the content of such group rights has to be
specied. Is it sucient to refer to generic norms of minority protection or do
we have to refer to Roma-specic norms?
Generic minority rights are intended to apply to all ethnocultural minor-
ities, whereas targeted minority rights are intended to apply to particu-
lar types of minorities, such as indigenous peoples, national minorities and
immigrants (Kymlicka : ). A clear example of the former is Article
of the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. On
a European level, the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention refers to
‘national minorities’, which usually include all sub-state national groups except
for immigrants. Are these legal instruments guaranteeing ‘the right to enjoy
one’s culture’ sucient to protect the rights of Roma? Neither the Roma nor
any other sizeable minorities are satised with such limited group rights.
As noted earlier, a separate network of international bodies and policies
has emerged dealing specically with the Roma, suggesting that the generic
norms of minority protection are not sucient. e Council of Europe, OSCE
and EU all have their own Roma-specic organs, such as the Coordinator for
Roma Issues, Specialist Group on Roma, Gypsies and Travellers, and European
Roma and Travellers Forum (Council of Europe), the Contact Point for Roma
and Sinti Issues (OSCE), and the inter-departmental commission and steering
group on Roma (EU).
As a result, in the last to years many reports, declarations, recommen-
dations and resolutions have been produced in relation to Roma (or ‘nomads’,
as they were called until the s) (Majtényi and Vizi ; Marchand ).
ese, oen inconsistent, documents attempt to identify the specic problems
that Romani communities face and make non-binding propositions and gen-
eral recommendations to remedy these problems.
However, moving beyond general political declarations, the question
remains: what specic group rights should Roma enjoy? Is it possible to formu-
late such rights, for instance in a new EU directive? Since the term ‘Roma’ refers
to diverse groups such as Sinti, Gitano, Manoush, Musicians and Travellers –
. In those states in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, people belonging to
such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their
group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, or to use their own
language.
. It should be noted that Belgium, France, Greece, Luxembourg, Moldova and Turkey have yet
to ratify the Framework Convention.
. Small and assimilated minorities not able or willing to exercise regional autonomy or to
sustain their own institutions (such as universities) may be satised with limited cultural group
rights.
to name just a few – who do not necessarily identify themselves as Roma,
there is likely to be disagreement on what to protect from majority institutions.
One does not have to take sides in the debate on the common roots and ori-
gins of peoples labelled ‘Roma’ to recognise the present heterogeneity of those
groups, having diverse customs, languages, church aliations and legal status.
Once again: it is irrelevant whether the Roma form a worldwide diaspora
or a non-territorial nation (confronting racism and negative prejudice every-
where) from the point of view of spelling out what specic group rights – if
any – can remedy the particular forms of discrimination that Romani peoples
face. Indeed, the questions of nomadic lifestyle, language and asylum divide
Romani activists. As Nicolae Gheorghe and omas Acton note,
the defence of a nomadic life-style which is the crucial issue for most Gypsy organisa-
tions in north-western Europe is explicitly repudiated by many Central and Eastern
European [Romani] politicians. [. . .] At the same time the struggles for cultural and
linguistic rights (at least at the folkloric level), which were the most permissible form
of group self-promotion in many former Communist countries, were little more than
a pleasant but irrelevant dream to most West European Romani leaders, for whom the
language issue had little salience. Equally, the emergence of the asylum-seekers from
Eastern Europe has divided the movement. [. . .] the majority of Western Romani organ-
isations […] have done whatever they can to support asylum-seekers – and are some-
times disappointed to nd that some Romani leaders in Eastern Europe tend to regard
the asylum-seekers as those who have run away from the struggle against the growing
racist violence and discrimination in Eastern Europe. (Acton and Gheorghe : )
European-level policy-makers and activists cannot neglect the signicant dif-
ferences in the social position of various groups considered to be Roma and the
forms of discrimination and exclusion that they face. e historic diversity of
Roma groups imposes serious constraints not only upon the formalisation of
Romani culture for the purposes of teaching and propagating it, but upon the
formulation of anti-discrimination policies in the form of minority rights as well.
Although nearly all scholarly and policy papers as well as ocial documents
and recommendations contain a footnote on the heterogeneity of groups
labelled Roma, even a recent comprehensive EU document entitled Community
Instruments and Policies for Roma Inclusion fails to recognise the importance
of such diversity for social inclusion and anti-discrimination policies.
. at is, belonging to a unied Roma nation as promoted, for instance, by the International
Romani Union.
. Commission of the European Communities: Commission Sta Working Document
Accompanying the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council,
the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Community
Instruments and Policies for Roma Inclusion, COM () , Brussels .
. Footnote in this document reads “For the purpose of this article, the term ‘Roma’ is used
– similarly to other political documents of the European Council, European Parliament etc. – as
an umbrella term including also other groups of people who share more or less similar cul-
---
Alternatively, taking seriously the heterogeneity of ‘Romani’ groups can
only lead to a rather mixed – if not incoherent – international policy propos-
als. In the Conclusions and Recommendations on the Situation of Fundamental
Rights in the European Union and Its Member States in , the EU Network of
Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights, promoting a specic EU direc-
tive aiming at the integration of Roma, took the following position:
[e EU directive] should provide that eective accommodations will be made to
ensure the Roma/Gypsies will be able to maintain their traditional lifestyle, when they
have chosen the nomadic or semi-nomadic mode of life, without being forced into
sedentarisation. It should take account the need to eectuate the desegregation of the
Roma/Gypsy communities, where this is required, especially in employment, hous-
ing and education [. . .]. It should address the question of the inaccessibility of certain
social and economic rights due to the administrative situation of Roma/Gypsies to
whom administrative documents are denied or who are considered stateless.
Even though there appears to be a consensus on the inadequacy of the individ-
ual-rights-based EU anti-discrimination directive for guaranteeing the equal-
ity of Roma in the exercise of their fundamental human rights, it is unclear
whether it is possible and desirable to accord group rights for various commu-
nities labelled Roma – and, if so, what the content of such rights should be. To
name a few proposals:
− Roma/Gypsies should be able to have access to employment or obtain ser-
vices without being prevented from doing so by the fact of them wearing
traditional clothing, even where a justication may be given to support the
prohibition of such clothing. What should require justication is the refusal
to make an exception to a general prohibition measure, whereas this meas-
ure prevents the Roma/Gypsies from preserving an essential element of
their identity.
− e Roma/Gypsies should be able to choose to lead an itinerant or semi-
tural characteristics and a history of persistent marginalisation in European societies, such as
the Sinti, Travellers, Ashkali etc. e European Commission is aware of the recurrent debate
regarding the use of the term Roma, and it has no intention to ‘assimilate’ the members of other
groups to the Roma themselves in cultural terms. Nonetheless, it considers the use of ‘Roma’ as
an umbrella term practical and justiable within the context of a policy document which is dealing
above all with issues of social exclusion and discrimination, not with specic issues of cultural
identity” (italics added).
. EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights: Conclusions and
Recommendations on the Situation of Fundamental Rights in the European Union and Its Member
States in 2003. p. .
. Council Directive //EC of June implementing the principle of equal treat-
ment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin, OJ L ( July ).
. Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National
Minorities, Opinion on Finland (ACFC/INF/OP/I()), para. ; Advisory Committee
on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Opinion on Sweden
(ACFC/INF/OP/I()), para.
itinerant lifestyle, even there where there are good justications for country
planning legislation which in principle denies them the availability of stop-
ping places for their caravans.
− Educational policies for Roma/Gypsy children should be accompanied by
adequate resources and the exible structures necessary to meet the diversi-
ty of the Roma/Gypsy population in Europe and which take into account the
existence of Roma/Gypsy groups which lead an itinerant or semi-itinerant
lifestyle. In this respect, it might be envisaged having recourse to distance
education, based on new communication technologies.
− In order to ensure non-discriminatory access to health care for the Roma/
Gypsies, health-care workers should become more familiar with Roma prac-
tices relating to health care so that they can make the necessary accommo-
dations for those practices.
Such provisions are certainly relevant for some Romani groups; however, it
is doubtful whether a comprehensive list relevant for all Roma can be made,
taking into account their sometimes diametrically opposed needs. Consider,
for instance, the demand of some itinerant Gypsies for separate stopping places
for their caravans and the desire of ‘sedentary’ Roma to live in non-segregated
neighbourhoods.
National minority versus non-territorial ‘nation without a state’
e third dilemma concerns the locus of Romani self-determination and
autonomy. Should Romani peoples be recognised as national minorities in
their respective home countries, or as a non-territorial nation?
e idea of a Roma/Gypsy nation was rst advanced by self-appointed
‘Gypsy kings’ from the Kwiek family in the second half of the nineteenth cen-
. Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National
Minorities, Opinion on the United Kingdom (ACFC/INF/OP/I()), Nov. , para.
–.
. Recommendation No R () of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the
education of Roma/Gypsy children in Europe (adopted by the Committee of Ministers on Feb.
at the th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies)
. Council of Europe (), Breaking the Barriers: Romani Women and Access to Public Health
Care.
. e institution of the so-called Gypsy kings (or rather an imitation of an institution for
the sake of the surrounding population) is a phenomenon that is well known in history. Since
the Gypsies came to Western Europe in the eenth century, the historical sources noted their
‘king Sindel, the dukes Andrash, Mihali and Panuel’, and other ‘princes of Little Egypt’. is is
a case of presenting their leaders according to the general terminology in order to mislead the
European rulers into granting privileges for the Gypsies. Later on, the institution of the Gypsy
kings appeared in the Polish Commonwealth in the seventeenth and eighteens centuries. It was
most oen headed by non-Gypsies who were responsible to the state for collecting taxes from
the Gypsies.
---
tury. e Kwiek dynasty promoted something totally new in Gypsy history: the
idea of an independent state, Romanestan (land of the Roma). Initiatives were
taken in searching for territory for the state (Marushiakova and Popov :
). However, the idea of Romanestan gradually faded away, giving way to a
new form of nation-building strategy that was pursued in the above mentioned
framework of the World Congresses.
In the s, the process of searching for a place for the Gypsies in European
integration saw the emergence of the concept of the Roma as a ‘trans[border]-
national minority’. is concept was introduced for the rst time at the meet-
ing in Ostia near Rome in . At that time, it was hoped that international
law and the European institutions could improve the social status of the
Gypsies and solve their numerous problems in Central and Eastern Europe,
which appeared or were aggravated as a result of the dicult period of transi-
tion. When the countries of Central and Eastern Europe joined the Framework
Convention for national minorities and the Roma were given the status of
national minority in most countries without any considerable positive changes
for them, their disappointment led them to seek new ideas for the development
of the Roma community (Marushiakova and Popov : ).
e concept of the Roma as ‘a nation without a state’ was a logical conse-
quence of these developments. e Fih World Romani Congress, held in
July in Prague, adopted the manifesto Declaration of Nation that con-
rmed and detailed the claim for non-territorial nationhood and international
recognition. Moreover, the manifesto claimed that the Romani nation oers to
the rest of humanity a new vision of stateless nationhood that is more suited to
a globalised world than is aliation to traditional nation-states.
As a result, the Roma are increasingly seen as a group that challenges the
principle of territorial democracy and the Westphalian international order.
Most of the above detailed Roma-specic bodies and documents subscribe to
. In the newly elected Gypsy king Jozef Kwiek sent a delegation to the League of Nations
to ask for land in Southern Africa (specically Namibia) so that the Gypsies could have their
own state there. At the same time the “alternative” king Michał II Kwiek travelled to India in
order to specify the location of the future Gypsy state (somewhere along the shores of the River
Ganges). Aer his trip he began to support the idea that the state should be in Africa (Uganda)
and travelled to Czechoslovakia and England to seek support for his idea. In the next king,
heir to Joseph, Janusz Kwiek, sent a delegation to Mussolini asking for some land in Abyssinia
(at that time occupied by Italy) where the Gypsies could have their own state.
. e concept of the Roma as ‘a nation without a state’ was suggested and developed in many
articles by a non-Roma individual, Paolo Pietrosanti from Italy, an inuential member of the
Transradical party, was co-opted into the International Romani Union leadership (even though
it was not very clear how this happened) as early as the mid-s. Others trace back the idea
of ‘transnational or non-territorial minority’ to the French sociologist Jean-Pierre Liégeois (Guy
).
. However, according to the Acton and Klímová-Alexander (), the manifesto was issued
aer the Congress itself, so the delegates did not approve it.
such an approach by declaring the Gypsies to be ‘a true European minority’
or ‘a special minority with transnational character’.
Are the Roma an exceptional nation, then? Following Bauböck, the Roma
can be seen as special kind of transborder minority (Bauböck ). Simple
transborder minorities have been historically cut o from a neighbouring kin.
Such is the case of the Hungarian minorities in Slovakia and Romania. In add-
ition, however, four complex cases can be distinguished that emerge from suc-
cessively dropping, one by one, the following assumptions: (a) that the conict
is between a majority within a nationalising state and a minority with an exter-
nal kin-state; (b) that the conict occurs within a state with internationally
recognised borders and a prima facie claim to territorial integrity and inde-
pendence; (c) that for each group with strong external ties there is a kin-state
with which it identies; and (d) that each group has at least some territorial
homeland where it can or could realise aspirations of national self-government.
ese four points will now be elaborated.
(a) e rst complex case is that of a divided minority with several external
kin-states. Moldova and Cyprus are examples of such a constellation.
(b) e second constellation relates to disputed territories. Kashmir and
Northern Ireland illustrate this type. In both provinces, the population is deep-
ly divided over the question into which of the neighbouring states it should
be incorporated. In Kashmir there is no internationally recognised border
and neither India nor Pakistan has renounced their claims to the province.
Northern Ireland is dierent because it is recognised as part of the United
Kingdom, but the British government itself has stated that it would respect a
plebiscite in the province in favour of (re)unication with Ireland.
(c) ere are transborder minorities without kin-states. Most of these “state-
less nations” live in a traditional homeland that is conned within the borders
of a state. Some diaspora groups, however, hail from ethnic and national minor-
ities in their countries of origin and emigrated because they felt oppressed by
the state institutions. Instead of expecting external support from their state of
origin, they themselves provide political support for co-ethnics remaining in
the homeland. Dropping the assumption that there is an independent exter-
nal kin-state generates yet another type of transborder minorities. ese are
minorities whose culture has not been established in any state and who live in
a traditional homeland that stretches across an international border. In Europe,
the Catalans and Basques might be characterised in this way.
(d) Finally, there are dispersed minorities that do not have a territorial home-
land where they could realise aspirations of national self-government. What
if the group has neither a kin-state that provides external support nor a terri-
. Council of Europe: Assembly Recommendation () on the Gypsies of Europe.
. Decade of Roma Inclusion, Call for European Roma Policy, Feb. .
---
tory where it could realise aspirations to self-government? e simple answer
is that these groups are unlikely to develop such aspirations in the rst place.
is answer is, however, not entirely sucient because extreme forms of segre-
gation and oppression might generate in such dispersed ethnic groups a sense
that independent nation-building is their only hope for protection or even for
sheer survival. is explains the attraction of the Zionist response to European
anti-Semitism in the rst half of the twentieth century.
Today, the Roma populations t most closely the description as a dispersed
transnational minority. e vision of a non-territorial, dispersed, transnational
nation was indeed taken up by a fraction of Romani elite – ‘Unlike the com-
mon situation of ethnic minorities who are more or less conned to certain
territories or regions, Romani communities are dispersed both within and
across the boundaries of countries, states and continents in a world-wide dias-
pora’ (Acton and Gheorghe : ) – and some scholars: ‘e uniqueness
of the Gypsies lies in the fact they are a transnational, non-territorially based
people who do not have a “home a state” to provide a haven or extend protec-
tion to them (Bárány : ).
However, the vision of a nation without a state can be criticised on several
grounds. () Numerous research projects point out that oen either the com-
munities labelled ‘Roma’ are unaware of the vision or they do not identify with
it. () Others consider the claim to be such a non-territorial nation, from a pol-
Transborder minorities
Divided minorities
with several kin-states
Minorities of
disputed territories
Minorities
without kin-state
Dispersed
minorities
F . Types of minority
itical perspective, to be harmful or counterproductive. () Finally, the moral
standing of the claim may also be contested.
() First, several anthropologists have pointed out that numerous Gypsy,
Sinti, Gitano and other communities do not see themselves as Roma. In other
words, they claim that it is not possible to replace such pejorative exonyms
as cikán in Czech, cygan in Slovak and cigány in Hungarian by an ocially
declared endonym, namely that of ‘Roma’.
Guy y Blasco claims that ‘for over ve hundred years, the Gypsy diaspora
has been characterised by its extreme political and structural fragmentation,
and by the weakness of any overarching Gypsy imagined community’. She
argues that the Gitano community in Jarana is not aware of the Roma activist
movement and would not identify with its aims. is community is character-
ised by ‘the weakness of any frames of communal reference external to Gitano
individuals themselves’ (Gay y Blasco : ).
In brief, the diversity of groups labelled ‘Roma’ is quite a serious factor in
the community. Some authors even ask the question how realistic it is to use
the concept of community (let alone ‘nation’) for a group of people whose
mother tongues are not only the various dialects of Romanes but also Arabic,
Turkish, Greek, Albanian, Romanian, Hungarian, Spanish and others, while,
furthermore, groups with various preferred (i.e. publicly declared or even
really experienced) dierent, non-Gypsy ethnic identities are quite common.
Sometimes the awareness of community unity in some regions may be absent
altogether (or it may exist on lower levels) and the Gypsies may not be aware
of the existence of bigger community subdivisions (Marushiakova and Popov
: ). And even amongst those groups that identify themselves as Roma,
existing studies suggest that they would like to integrate politically and socially
in their respective nation-state and do not wish for the recognition of a non-
territorial nation (Vermeersch ).
() e vision of non-territorial nation may also be abused or lead to severe
undesired consequences. National governments can take up this discourse to
diminish their own responsibility by Europeanising the ‘problem’ of the Roma,
national governments may seek to free their own nation from the burden of
Roma.
e concept of ‘a nation without a state’ may also contribute to ethnicisa-
tion of social problems and undermine inter-ethnic solidarity and coopera-
tion. e propagation of Roma nationhood may incite radical nationalism
amongst Roma and non-Roma alike. Xenophobic and racist organisations can
urge exclusionary and segregationist policies for members of the Roma nation,
if not their outright expulsion from the country.
International governmental bodies (such as the Council of Europe) and
non-governmental organisations (such as the European Roma and Traveller
---
Forum) may take up the discourse of non-territorial nation and ‘true European
minority’ in order to justify trans-European governance and their own role in
such a structure (Kovats ).
() Finally, the cosmopolitan or post-national vision advocated in the
Declaration of Nation may not even be morally desirable.
Kymlicka argues that liberal nationhood should be tamed not transcended in
the form of post-national or cosmopolitan citizenship. ‘e idea of unbundling
rights from citizenship is not, in and of itself, a politically progressive position.
For many on the right in Germany, it was a tool for avoiding the granting of full
and equal citizenship. [. . .] Temporary unbundling is politically progressive if
and when it serves as a step towards rebundling in the form of full and equal
citizenship within the framework of liberal nationhood.’(Kymlicka : )
However, at least two arguments can be raised against Kymlicka. First, the
nation-state is not the sole site of our democratic attachments. Even if formal
transnational democratic institutions (such as the European Parliament) are
premature, it is dicult to deny the existence and emergence of non-national
modes of belonging, such as long-term residency, binationality, and transna-
tionality – as may be the case with Roma. Secondly, ‘modalities of non-nation-
al citizenship may arise along with rather than in place of national citizenship’
(Benhabib : ).
Let us return to the original dilemma: should the Roma be seen as a national
minority or as a non-territorial nation? Are the two options mutually exclusive?
e claim to be a non-territorial nation can be interpreted in at least two
ways. (i) Some argue that the claim was made for strategic purposes; (ii) others
stress the inherent value of the claim referring to the Roma as an exceptional,
avant-garde nation. e former may t the present international order, where-
as the latter seeks to transform it.
(i) By raising the ethnic status of Roma from minority to nation, with its
own parliament, the International Romani Union aims to increase its power of
leverage with both national governments and international bodies. e hope
is that this strategy will lead to increased funding to improve the material con-
ditions of Roma, thus strengthening their social identity (Guy : ). In
addition, the claim to special status may also be the consequence of the inad-
equacy of the existing national and international legal instruments (such as the
European Framework Convention for national minorities) for improving the
social status of Roma.
In brief, one can argue that although the Roma are striving for recognition
as a nation, their real political motive is not Roma statehood, but a greater
say in how their own problems are solved, i.e. greater political participation
(elen : ).
(ii) More radically, in the context of an expanding and changing, multi-
ethnic Europe, some believe that the role of Romani activism is to spearhead
the deconstruction of the idea of majority nations and, perhaps in consequence,
bring about ‘nothing less than the abolition of the nation-state’:
Romani activists are stuck with their cosmopolitanism; they cannot cop out from it
with an imitation Zionism or any other kind of ethnic particularism. In fact, while
Jews can still imagine that they have learnt from the Holocaust that only having a place
of their own can protect them from a repetition, for Roma the lesson is the opposite.
For them the twentieth-century Holocaust abolished the protection of the mehalla, the
ghetto, the segregated pariah nomadism, and the other sanctuaries that emerged as
refuges aer the holocaust of the sixteenth century.
ere is no substitute for having human rights everywhere; this is the logic of seek-
ing to dene Roma as a transnational rather than a national minority. It is not so much
that the rights of ethnic minorities must be protected, as that ethnic majorities must be
in themselves deconstructed. e foundation of global human law must shi from the
self-contradictory illusion of national self-determination to a new bedrock of individ-
ual human self-determination. e unfolding agenda of Gypsy activism may be noth-
ing less than the abolition of the nation-state. (Acton and Gheorghe : )
Conclusions
is article has discussed three moral and political dilemmas that inevitably
arise in the context of the emerging European Roma policy, and on which all
concerned parties, including grassroots Romani organisations, will be able to
express their views. e rst concerns the matter of whether anti-discrimina-
tion measures based on universal individual rights are sucient to promote
the social inclusion of Roma or whether those based on group-dierentiat-
ed minority rights are required to ensure the exercise of their fundamental
human rights. Even though there appears to be a consensus on the insucien-
cy of the former approach, it is unclear exactly what sorts of minority rights
should be promoted – which leads us to the second dilemma of generic versus
targeted minority rights.
Although populations labelled ‘Roma’ may confront similar forms of dis-
crimination, for instance in education, housing or health care, which arm-
ative desegregation measures may counter, these groups also dier in many
respects that do not only concern “specic issues of cultural identity” but are
directly relevant for issues of social exclusion.
. As opposed to the claim of a recent EU document: Commission of the European Com-
munities, Commission Sta Working Document Accompanying the Communication from
the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social
Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Community Instruments and Policies for Roma
Inclusion, COM () , Brussels .
---
For instance, concerning questions of nomadic lifestyle, language and asy-
lum there are genuine dierences amongst Romani populations on whether to
promote the civic inclusion in common institutions or to protect the culture,
language and customs from assimilation and majority institutions. ese dif-
ferences must be respected: ‘one-size-ts-all-Roma’ measures should be thor-
oughly debated.
e third dilemma is whether to recognise Roma as a national minority
or as a non-territorial nation. e article has argued that the notion of non-
territorial nation can be debated on anthropological, political and moral
grounds. Anthropologists have pointed out that oen either the communities
labelled ‘Roma’ are unaware of the vision of a non-territorial nation or they do
not identify with it. Others consider the claim politically harmful or counter-
productive. Finally, the moral standing of such a post-national vision may also
be contested.
However, the claim to be a non-territorial nation may also be promoted for
strategic purposes – and this is where the three dilemmas converge. e pre-
sent international and European legal framework guarantees only minimalis-
tic generic rights to minorities: essentially the rights to enjoy their own culture.
is framework is clearly insucient to tackle the various patterns of exclusion
that Roma face.
As a result, Roma-specic international bodies and policies have emerged
that try to exert pressure on national governments to promote the inclusion of
Roma. e real political motive behind the claim to be a non-territorial nation
then is international recognition and greater political participation.
Nonetheless, the political participation of Romani populations remains
weak on local, national and international levels, but the normative assess-
ment of these structures remains the subject of another inquiry.
What conclusions can be drawn specically in relation to the role of the
European Union and its emerging Roma strategy? e European Union has
gradually recognised that anti-discrimination measures in themselves are
not sucient to promote the social integration of Roma. A recent working
document recommends EU bodies to focus on ‘the poverty of geographical-
ly concentrated post-transitional rural and suburban underclass to which the
majority of EU’s Roma population is directly subject to or indirectly threat-
ened by.’
. For instance, the Hungarian minority self-government system provides irrelevant, some-
times counterproductive, entitlements – such as the provision for separate minority education
justifying segregation – while it does not provide legal protection to mistreated members of
the community or enable them to have a say in the shaping of local welfare regulations and in
weeding out their hidden discriminatory measures (Szalai ).
. Working Document on the EU strategy on the social inclusion of Roma, Committee on
Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Aairs. Rapporteur: Lívia Járóka, Sept. .
() is is a legitimate and vital policy focus; however, it explicitly excludes
‘the complex phenomena of ethnicity-based discrimination [and] issues of
migration’ and implicitly the social diculties of all other Roma groups
who do not live in impoverished post-communist regions. In my view, the
European Union cannot leave behind Irish Travellers struggling for adequate
stopping places or Ashkali immigrants forced into concentration camp like
campi nomadi in Italy– to illustrate two problems not addressed by the emer-
ging EU Roma Strategy.
() Furthermore, the social integration of Roma can be successful only if it
is coupled with their increasing recognition. Educational integration programs
are doomed to fail as long as ‘white’ parents prefer to put their children in all-
white classes. Moving Roma families from slums to decent houses in white
neighbourhoods will only lead to white-ight and new forms of ghettoisation
while non-Roma do not accept Roma neighbours. Integration programs will
work only if both the majority and minority want to and are able to recognise
each other and live together.
() Finally, it is precisely associating Roma with misery and extreme pov-
erty that reproduces stereotypes preventing the recognition and integration of
Roma. e EU should foster all grassroots and national eorts aiming at the
recognition of Roma culture, history, art, lms etc. For instance, accredited
history textbooks in Hungary still ignore Roma history, including the persecu-
tion of Roma in the Second World War (Rövid et al. ). ere are still hard-
ly any Roma TV presenters, movie stars or other respected public gures that
could be role models. ese are only two examples of how stereotypes hinder-
ing the integration of Roma could be broken down.
In sum, anti-discrimination measures and the development of the poor-
est post-transition micro-regions cannot be ecient in themselves. A Roma
middle class has to emerge alongside a culture of equality and diversity. As
the positive actions of the US Federal Government played a crucial role in the
social integration and recognition of the African-American community from
the s, the European Union could be the catalyst for contesting the institu-
tionalised forms of suppression Roma face in today’s Europe.
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---
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