Roma for Europe

09/10/2026

Neda Korunovska is optimistic after this year’s Roma Ministerial Meeting in Podgorica.

For the first time, governments did more than talk about what they’ve done. They also presented how, from next year, their plans will focus on what investment from their own national budgets is expected to produce for Roma neighbourhoods.

Our European partners agree that Roma equality is essential to EU accession, and what counts now is real results.

The meeting is over. Now comes the real work. We will hold governments to their commitments and work with them to bring real change to Roma neighbourhoods.

“My optimism doesn’t come from promises made in conference rooms,” Neda says. “It comes from Roma communities, from their leadership, their agency and their determination to shape their own future.”

09/10/2026

This week, Petrica Dulgheru spoke at the Balkan Impact Network event in Abu Dhabi. There he presented REDI Fund, which enables access to finance for Roma-owned businesses that traditional lenders often view as too risky.

REDI Fund is just one of the ways in which REDI - Roma Entrepreneurship Development Initiative is strengthening Roma entrepreneurship.

08/10/2026

"If we do things well in the coming years, there should be more and more Roma-relevant, Roma-led institutions."

Kinga Rethy is a firm believer in supporting people and developing talent. But as she sees it, systemic change for Roma will come from institutions, which keep a presence in mainstream conversations and in Roma communities long after any one person's time in a role.

People create institutions at the outset, but it shouldn't always be the same people leading them. That's why our network is investing in Roma youth who can step into leadership positions, including young Roma women.

Watch the full interview at the link in the comments.

07/10/2026

Western Balkan countries are bringing in workers from abroad, while many young Roma at home are kept out of formal jobs. Serbia alone now has over 100,000 foreign workers, many in jobs young Roma could do.

Roma are the youngest, fastest-growing part of the region's workforce, but specific barriers stand in their way: missing documents, unfinished schooling and benefit rules that make informal work the rational choice.

Governments can tackle these barriers with laws and budget decisions, not new strategies. Letting families keep their benefits for a transition period after a young adult takes a formal job would make formal work pay.

Governments can also open vocational training to people who didn't finish school, make self-employment support easier to use and back the businesses Roma already run.

Tomorrow, at the annual Roma Ministerial Meeting in Podgorica, ministers from the region will take stock of the commitments their governments have made on Roma since 2019.

Those promises will only count if they make a real difference for Roma and for the region.

06/10/2026

At 22, Radoslav Rosenov became European boxing champion in Sofia last month, winning Bulgaria's only gold medal of the championships and being named the tournament's best boxer. Afterwards, he stood beneath the Bulgarian flag and sang the national anthem as if every word belonged to him.

For Daniela Samiri, that moment was both beautiful and deeply uncomfortable. The question has never been whether Bulgarian Roma feel Bulgarian, she writes. Roma have lived in the country for generations, spoken its language, shaped its culture and carried its flag onto international podiums. The question is why Bulgaria finds it so much easier to recognise Roma as its own when there is something valuable to bring home. A medal belongs to the nation, while exclusion is explained through Roma culture.

The same logic, she says, shapes how the "successful Roma" is seen. Roma champions, artists, doctors and entrepreneurs are treated as exceptions, which leaves assumptions about Roma in general untouched. An ethnic Bulgarian can succeed, fail or live an unremarkable life without carrying an entire people on his shoulders. Roma are still too often denied that ordinariness.

For decades, public debate has asked whether Roma want to belong. Daniela turns the question around:

"Perhaps the problem was never that Roma did not know how to belong to Bulgaria. Perhaps Bulgaria has simply been much better at recognising what Roma can give it than recognising Roma as entirely its own."

🔗 Read Daniela's article at the link in the comments.

02/10/2026

Sixty Roma mayors, councillors and MPs from seven countries met for the first time as peers in Skopje last month. The gathering was called Sherutnipe, a Romani word for collective leadership and governance.

Until this year, nobody had counted Roma in public office. The Roma for Democracy Foundation convened Sherutnipe after its researchers confirmed 261 Roma officeholders in 12 European countries.

Asked what would help them most, the officeholders didn't mention money. They talked instead about negotiation, coalitions, colleagues and teams.

For participants from Hungary, including a member of the Roma self-government in Salgótarján and a councillor from Budapest's 8th District, the value was in hearing how others deal with problems they face at home.

🔗 Read more at the link in the comments.

Thanks to the Roma Sajtóközpont - Roma Press Center for the interviews quoted here.

01/10/2026

The Western Balkans needs around 66,000 more formal jobs for Roma to close its employment gap. Governments agreed on that number last year. Here's the catch: the ministers responsible for Roma strategies usually aren't the ones who decide on jobs.

Next week, the governments meet again in Podgorica for the Roma Ministerial Meeting, Europe's highest-level meeting on Roma. This time, we want practical answers. Who will act? How fast? What will happen between now and next year's meeting?

What would you ask the ministers? Let us know in the comments.

30/09/2026

Spending on Roma employment is an investment in Europe's workforce, argues Zeljko Jovanovic, not a drain on public finances.

Nearly 2 million workers will leave the EU labour market every year for the next 15 years, and Europe already faces labour shortages. At the same time, more than half of Roma aged 15–24 are not in work, education or training—nearly 5 times the EU average.

That's talent Europe cannot afford to leave idle.

In Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia alone, closing the employment gap between Roma and non-Roma could add up to €10 billion a year to GDP. Our modelling shows that targeted training for in-demand jobs could pay for itself in just 1 to 4 years.

The EU funding to make this happen is already in place. What's missing is effective delivery.

Read more at the link in comments.

29/09/2026

Roma for Democracy Foundation is in Brussels for the EU Parliamentary Democracy Forum

We are in Brussels today for the EU Parliamentary Democracy Forum, discussing how Europe safeguards elections and strengthens democratic resilience.

Europe can protect its land and its airspace. But can it safeguard elections inside its own home?

For 12 million Roma across Europe, that question starts at the polling station.

Between 2019 and 2025, Roma for Democracy trained and deployed 2,274 Roma election observers across Bulgaria, Romania and North Macedonia. They independently monitored voting procedures, documented failures and helped protect the integrity of the vote.

Because an election is only as strong as citizens' ability to make a free political choice - and their confidence that their vote will be protected and counted.

And those votes carry political power.

As Europe debates how to defend democracy from interference, manipulation and geopolitical disruption, we bring evidence from where democracy is ultimately tested: the polling station and the ballot box.

Europe's democratic resilience starts at home.

Learn more about our work here: https://romafordemocracy.org/our-work

European Parliament Roberta Metsola Katarina Barley

Photo: © European Union 2026 – Source: EP

28/09/2026

“We must make choices.” Five European leaders recently wrote those words as they proposed cutting the EU’s next budget by hundreds of billions in the name of competitiveness. They’re right that Europe needs to make choices. We’d just point them in a different direction.

A defence plant near Bratislava can’t find 300 welders and electricians. Just down the road, Roma men have been welding pipe and wiring houses for 15 years—with nothing on paper to prove it. A Bulgarian baker who serves three villages can’t get a loan for a second oven because her house isn’t registered. An entrepreneur with four patents gets turned down for the same reason. None of them show up in a budget line. All of them are exactly what Europe says it’s short of.

Investing in Roma works. REDI - Roma Entrepreneurship Development Initiative lends to Roma businesses and the repayment rate is 95% to 98%. Training Roma youth for in-demand jobs pays off just as well: the returns cover the costs many times over.

Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia have the largest Roma populations in Europe—and Roma are their fastest-growing workforce. With proper funding now, these countries will need less from Brussels later. Cut instead, and in five years they’ll need more.