Roma for Europe

11/06/2026

Happy Birthday to ERIAC!

Nine years ago, Roma leaders, artists and advocates came together around a simple but radical idea: that Roma culture deserved a permanent home in Europe's cultural landscape.

What they built is the @ European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture - ERIAC—an institution that turns individual brilliance into collective legacy, fights for Roma artists and refuses to let their work be reduced to stereotype or spectacle.

Today, ERIAC is 280 members strong: painters, musicians, filmmakers, scholars and storytellers who found in it something rare—a transnational home that reflects who they are and amplifies what they make.

👉 Follow ERIAC to learn more.

11/06/2026

"I don't want the next generation of Roma to fight the same battles for basic dignity, recognition and opportunity that so many have been forced to fight for decades."

In a recent episode of Creative Talks by Roma News, our Daniela Samiri and Akif Kariman of the Roma for Democracy Foundation talked about what it will take to change the lives of Roma—and why moving from project to project, or repeating familiar advocacy language without asking if it's truly shifting systems, won't be enough.

🎥 Watch the full episode in Romani at the link in the comments.

09/06/2026

Europe's population is declining and its workforce is shrinking. Employers in sector after sector report they cannot find the workers they need.

And yet Europe is missing out on the potential of Roma. 34% of Roma are unemployed—compared to around 6% for the EU as a whole—and 56% of Roma youth are not in education, employment or training. That's not a skills gap. It's a system that has failed to connect people to work.

Investment in training Roma youth for shortage occupations can deliver economic returns in as little as one to four years. In Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania alone, achieving Roma employment parity could generate between €1.95 billion and €10 billion in additional GDP annually.

The talent is here. The drive is here. What's missing is a Europe willing to invest.

👉 Share if you think it's time to invest in Roma.

07/06/2026

"I wish I saw more of that solidarity."

In the second part of their wide-ranging interview, Jovanovic talks with Natalie Sarkic-Todd of the Battleground about the obstacles Roma face—and the alliances needed to overcome them.

They cover Roma voting power in Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, how politicians weaponise Roma for electoral gain, and the role of culture and language in building Roma identity and recognition.

Roma aren't waiting to be included, Zeljko said.

By their own talent, will and collective self-organisation, they are pushing back.

🔗 Listen to the interview. Link in comments.

🎙️ The Battleground. Edited and mastered by Joel Schalit.

05/06/2026

EU investment in the Western Balkans will only deliver if it reaches Roma.

Today's EU–Western Balkans Summit in Montenegro puts the region's future on the table. France and Germany are proposing real rewards for reform before full membership. But who benefits depends entirely on what counts as a reform.

The region can't find workers. At the same time, the youngest and fastest-growing demographic remains almost entirely outside the labour market. That gap won't close by itself.

Last month, Western Balkan labour ministers named Roma as a target group for active employment measures. That was a step forward.

Now leaders need to make it count. Share if you agree.

04/06/2026

Europe's centre-left parties are borrowing from the far-right playbook—tougher migration enforcement, collective policing, minority scapegoating—and calling it strategy.

In Slovenia, a centre-left government passed emergency policing powers targeting Roma. In Denmark, the Social Democrats built the most restrictive migration policy in Europe. In Romania, the nominally centre-left government backed moves to repeal anti-fascist laws.

The pattern is clear. So is the cost—for Roma and for European democracy. And the evidence that it works is mixed, at best.

Writing in EUobserver, Mensur Haliti argues that imitating the far right isn't the only alternative to irrelevance.

The centre-left doesn't have to choose between its values and its voters.

🔗 Read Mensur’s article at the link in the comments.

03/06/2026

Europe is running out of workers. Six million Roma—young, motivated and largely outside the formal economy—are exactly the untapped strength it needs.

The European Commission's Spring Package puts skills and reskilling at the heart of economic governance. The data on Roma employment tells the other half of the story: a 43% employment rate, falling to 28% among women—with rates declining in Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia even as labour demand grew.

Roma-led organisations have the models, trust and delivery infrastructure to change that. And they reach those who are invisible to public employment services—because the systems were never designed to find them.

Those organisations are ready to partner with governments. The question is whether governments are also prepared to act.

🔗 Read our full statement. Link in the comments.

02/06/2026

"What is good for Roma is good for Hungary, and the reverse is also true: what is good for Hungary is good for Roma."

Mensur Haliti spoke to HVG following Hungary's April elections, where Roma voters played a decisive role in ending 16 years of rule by Viktor Orbán. He welcomed the historic entry of five Roma MPs into Parliament—and one nomination for Deputy Speaker.

He argued that symbolic milestones need to be backed by real change: Roma experts and specialists have been locked out of decision-making for over 15 years, the public works programme pushed Roma deeper into poverty, and genuine reform means separating that system from local political control.

Roma voters backed change. Now they're watching to see if it comes.

🔗 Read the full article in Hungarian. Link in the comments.

01/06/2026

01/06/2026

In Europe, 95% of children attend pre-school. For Roma children, that figure is just 53%.

This International Children's Day, that gap is hard to ignore. And it doesn't stay in preschool—it follows children into segregated classrooms, out of secondary school and into the labour market.

Some organisations aren't waiting for the system to change. The Education Fund is one of them—bringing education directly into Roma communities and showing what's possible when investment is rooted there.

Like if you think every child deserves the same start in life.

📷 Akos Stiller