Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Global cities
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

European Roma and a new social Europe

Andrew Ryder 29th June 2022

The establishment of a Roma foundation provides an opportunity for a deep dialogue on the route from marginalisation to inclusion.

Roma,OpenSociety,Soros
From the series of paintings of Roma women by the Kosovan artist Farija Mehmeti (ERIAC)

Recently the Open Society Foundations, supported by the philanthropist George Soros, announced that a new Roma foundation was to be created. According to Open Society, it will be independent and Roma-led, linked to the broad network of Roma civil-society entities already in existence and supported by Open Society.

Open Society was established, in the wake of the transition in central and eastern Europe from Communism to liberal democracy, to promote the ideals of an open society where political freedoms and human rights were respected. An important aspect of its work over the last 30 years has been addressing the dire situation of Europe’s 12 million Roma—concentrated in central and eastern Europe—challenging the racism, segregation and indeed profound exclusion endured by Roma communities everywhere.

These efforts have played an important role in Roma advocacy and shaping European Union policy. Witness the new EU Roma Framework for equality, inclusion and participation for 2020-30, which aims to enhance empowerment and tackle racism, poverty and exclusion. Open Society has contributed greatly too to the Council of Europe’s work with Roma, including a joint initiative to establish the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC), promoting Roma culture and challenging racism. ERIAC is to be part of the proposed Roma-foundation network.

Support from Open Society has enabled the professionalisation of Roma civil society, preparing and training Roma community leaders in the skills of community development and project management. Thousands of Roma individuals have also benefited from generous scholarship programmes funded by Open Society and Soros, completing university studies and other forms of training, thereby engendering role models—an important theme in discussions of Roma community development, in light of educational segregation and early school-leaving—as well as a new generation of educated and skilled leaders.


Become part of our Community of Thought Leaders


Get fresh perspectives delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for our newsletter to receive thought-provoking opinion articles and expert analysis on the most pressing political, economic and social issues of our time. Join our community of engaged readers and be a part of the conversation.

Sign up here

This work has been life-changing and transformative. There have however been mistakes. Sometimes excessive managerialism in projects has created a disconnection from Roma communities, especially those at the margins. Sometimes grand schemes have been devised from the top down, rather than emerging organically from within communities. Sometimes projects have been paternalistic and aimed to reororient Roma identity in a way that was actually assimilationist, leaving Roma civil society struggling to become an active agent within them.

Deep dialogue

Yet without Soros, the Open Society and these decades of effort, Roma would likely be in a significantly worse situation than they are today. The impressive body of work by Open Society and Soros has created the foundation for what could be described as the Roma movement’, a diverse and heterogeneous collection of civil-society entities working towards Roma inclusion. The work of Open Society is an important part of this tapestry of activism and advocacy.

The establishment of a Roma foundation will be a huge enterprise, with profound implications for Roma communities and the Roma movement for generations to come. It must build upon the principles of inclusive community development, with a deep and open dialogue about the past—what worked but also what failed—and, as to the future, what Roma aspirations are in the 21st century and how Roma civil society can be an effective vehicle for the realisation of social justice.

Such a dialogue must not be tokenistic: a superficial consultation would deprive the Roma movement of a key opportunity to rebuild and re-envision. Within the EU the new framework emphasises Roma empowerment and involvement in the design and delivery of new policies. Open Society itself lobbied for such commitments and needs to ensure these values are reflected in its own work, thereby setting a good example to policy-makers and institutional power-holders.

New social Europe

The need for a strong and inclusive Roma civil society has never been greater. The huge challenges facing Europe in the wake of the pandemic, with a fragile economy and cost-of-living crisis, have accentuated Roma poverty. The rise of authoritarian nationalism has seen Roma demonised and stigmatised. We need a strong Roma movement to meet these challenges. A mismanaged reorientation of Roma civil society, in the hands only of donors and a small elite Roma circle, would greatly weaken any chances of success and taint the rich legacy of Open Society when it comes to Roma activism.

A book I coedited, Romani Communities and Transformative Change: A New Social Europe, makes the case for Roma exclusion to be addressed through a newly conceptualised ’social Europe’. This would depart from more statist and indeed monocultural conceptions prevalent in the 1970s and attach importance to cultural recognition as well as economic redistribution.

My colleagues and I envison a radical form of intercultural dialogue, avoiding the tokenism of liberal multiculturalism, which would challenge the deep cultural and historic foundations of anti-gypsyism. Alongside recognition there must however be a major redistributive programme, creating decent jobs and providing new social protections restraining the excesses of the market.

This new social Europe should empower communities at the margins, such as the Roma, in development initiatives centred on co-production (dynamic and inclusive partnerships between Roma and decision-makers) and asset-based community development. Culture and identity can then be used as a resource in development and for targeted outreach, to ensure new mainstream initiatives to deliver economic inclusion reach Roma specifically.


Support Progressive Ideas: Become a Social Europe Member!


Support independent publishing and progressive ideas by becoming a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month. You can help us create more high-quality articles, podcasts and videos that challenge conventional thinking and foster a more informed and democratic society. Join us in our mission - your support makes all the difference!

Become a Social Europe Member

A key component in this new social Europe will be civil society, not only acting as a bridge between policy-makers and communities but being actively involved in the design and delivery of policies. Those of us who care about the future and integrity of Roma civil society must thus contribute to the much-needed debate on how we can ensure it is Roma-led, inclusive and transformative.

Andrew Ryder
Andrew Ryder

Andrew Ryder is an associate professor at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest and author of The Challenge to Academic Freedom in Hungary: A Case Study in Authoritarianism, Culture War and Resistance (De Gruyter Press). He is a member of the board of the Roma Education Fund, with over two decades of involvement in Roma activism.

You are here: Home / Society / European Roma and a new social Europe

Most Popular Posts

Russia,information war Russia is winning the information warAiste Merfeldaite
Nanterre,police Nanterre and the suburbs: the lid comes offJoseph Downing
Russia,nuclear Russia’s dangerous nuclear consensusAna Palacio
Belarus,Lithuania A tale of two countries: Belarus and LithuaniaThorvaldur Gylfason and Eduard Hochreiter
retirement,Finland,ageing,pension,reform Late retirement: possible for many, not for allKati Kuitto

Most Recent Posts

OECD,inflation,monetary The OECD and the Great Monetary RestrictionRonald Janssen
prostitution,Europe,abolition Prostitution is not a free choice for womenLina Gálvez Muñoz
Abuse,work,workplace,violence Abuse at work: who bears the brunt?Agnès Parent-Thirion and Viginta Ivaskaite-Tamosiune
Ukraine,fatigue Ukraine’s cause: momentum is diminishingStefan Wolff and Tetyana Malyarenko
Vienna,social housing Vienna social-housing model: celebrated but misusedGabu Heindl

Other Social Europe Publications

strategic autonomy Strategic autonomy
Bildschirmfoto 2023 05 08 um 21.36.25 scaled 1 RE No. 13: Failed Market Approaches to Long-Term Care
front cover Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound Talks: does Europe have the skills it needs for a changing economy?

In this episode of the Eurofound Talks podcast, Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound’s research manager, Tina Weber, its senior research manager, Gijs van Houten, and Giovanni Russo, senior expert at CEDEFOP (The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training), about Europe’s skills challenges and what can be done to help workers and businesses adapt to future skills demands.

Listen where you get your podcasts, or for free, by clicking on the link below


LISTEN HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The summer issue of the Progressive Post magazine by FEPS is out!

The Special Coverage of this new edition is dedicated to the importance of biodiversity, not only as a good in itself but also for the very existence of humankind. We need a paradigm change in the mostly utilitarian relation humans have with nature.

In this issue, we also look at the hazards of unregulated artificial intelligence, explore the shortcomings of the EU's approach to migration and asylum management, and analyse the social downside of the EU's current ethnically-focused Roma policy.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI European Collective Bargaining Report 2022 / 2023

With real wages falling by 4 per cent in 2022, workers in the European Union suffered an unprecedented loss in purchasing power. The reason for this was the rapid increase in consumer prices, behind which nominal wage growth fell significantly. Meanwhile, inflation is no longer driven by energy import prices, but by domestic factors. The increased profit margins of companies are a major reason for persistent inflation. In this difficult environment, trade unions are faced with the challenge of securing real wages—and companies have the responsibility of making their contribution to returning to the path of political stability by reducing excess profits.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The future of remote work

The 12 chapters collected in this volume provide a multidisciplinary perspective on the impact and the future trajectories of remote work, from the nexus between the location from where work is performed and how it is performed to how remote locations may affect the way work is managed and organised, as well as the applicability of existing legislation. Additional questions concern remote work’s environmental and social impact and the rapidly changing nature of the relationship between work and life.


AVAILABLE HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube