Speech: Dan Pavel Doghi, Chief of the Contact Point for Roma and Sinti, OSCE/ODIHR Event: Digital High-Level-Conference launching the new “EU Roma Strategic Framework for Equality, Inclusion and Participation” until 2030 Panel 1: Fighting and preventing antigypsyism & discrimination

1. Dan Pavel Doghi, Chief of the Contact Point for Roma and Sinti, OSCE/ODIHR - speech
(ca. 4 minutes)
Event: Digital High-Level-Conference launching the new “EU Roma Strategic
Framework for Equality, Inclusion and Participation” until 2030
Panel 1: Fighting and preventing antigypsyism & discrimination
Roma’len, phenja’len thaj phrala’len, te aven saste thaj bahtale!
Madame Moderator, distinguished organizers, ministers, state secretaries and
commissioners, dear participants in this important event. Thank you for inviting me to speak
in this panel on fighting antigypsyism and discrimination. I very much welcome the launching
of the new EU Roma Framework, as well as of the EU Anti-racism Action Plan, which also
relates very closely to the problem facing the Roma.
In 2003, the OSCE participating States have adopted the Action Plan on Improving the
Situation of Roma and Sinti within the OSCE Area, built centrally on the goal of combating
racism and discrimination, including against women, children and youth. 17 years after, the
three ODIHR Status Reports assessing its implementation, show an overall grim picture and
very modest progress. Similar findings have emerged through a majority of reports produced
in the last decade by the EU and its FRA, and the Council of Europe.
Despite important international and national frameworks, pervasive racism and discrimination
against Roma and Sinti continue to manifest widely, and often in an unchallenged manner.
Nationalist extremism is casually expressed through political anti-Roma discourse, along
scapegoating and incitement to intolerance towards the Roma and Sinti, which often takes the
form of racially-motivated violence and hate crimes. Perpetrators of such crimes escape
justice and enjoy impunity.
Sadly, yet unacceptably, justice for Roma seem to not exist, whether we speak of most
egregious forms of crimes, such as mob violence resulting in killings or wounding of Roma,
including women and children, to burning their homes, to the systematic abuse of force by
police, along the yearly dozens of cases of forced eviction and demolition of homes of Roma
without provisions of alternative accommodation, or speaking of the less severe yet constant
forms of discrimination and exclusion as faced by large segments of Roma population, as
shown in the series of the EU FRA MIDIS anti-discrimination surveys and reports.
The systemic racism and the structural discrimination against the Roma and Sinti remains the
mostimportant obstacle to their inclusion, impeding on their capacity to equally exercise rights
as citizens, and enjoy their human rights. States have failed repeatedly, not only in their duty
to respect the human rights of Roma and Sinti, but also in fulfilling their own commitments and
strategies towards them, as established since more than 15 years.
To all these challenges, and to the questions of this panel, and in order to effectively combating
racism and discrimination against the Roma, my recommendations are as follows:
- Ensure that fighting racism and discrimination is central to any inclusion strategy, policies
and measures.Don’t shy away from using the word “racism”and pointing to it as being the
root cause of all these problems we are talking about. Failing to do so will only perpetuate

2. wasting important resources of time, money and opportunity, risking that in 15 years will
meet again to speak of the same problems and counting a very limited progress.
- Exert political will beyond mere statements devoided of action! It is time now that
governments start using their state budgets more significantly to financing their Roma
inclusion strategies.
- Put an end to the outrageous impunity for perpetrators and crimes against the Roma and
Sinti. Such impunity in itself is a blatant act of racism. As long as irrefutable acts of racism
and discrimination will continue to go unpunished to such a wide scale as witnessed, no
amount of money nor any inclusion strategy will ever work.
- Centuries-old hatred, prejudice and racism against the Roma, along their history of
persecution, slavery, genocide and Holocaust must be properly acknowledged and
reflected in history books and educational curriculum and echoed by civic education and
public awareness campaign. Only through this, coupled with genuine reconciliation
measures we can hope for achieving success with Roma inclusion policies.
Lastly, clarity over roles and legal responsibility is a must: Roma inclusion is first and foremost
a matter of national governments towards their own citizens; it is their duty to ensure safety
and security of Roma and Sinti and help their inclusion, according to constitutional rights, to
national laws and international legislation and standards. IGOs have a role to complement
such efforts, provide guidance, frameworks, technical assistance and expertise, examples of
working practices, and contribute funding, however, they must not substitute the responsibility
of governments. Roma inclusion will not happen unless national governments are taking this
responsibility seriously and start investing state money into closing these enormous gaps
between Roma and the majority population.
Thank you for your attention!