MPG was commissioned by the Making the Most of European Union Funds for Roma Program of the Open Society Foundations to carry out research and make recommendations regarding the principles of non-discrimination and equality in the programming and implementation of structural funds with a particular focus on the Roma, Europe’s largest ethnic minority community. The desk research covered five countries: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, while the Czech Republic was not included in the field research.
The report analyses how these Member States comply in practice with their obligations under Article 16 of the General Regulation on Structural Funds with respect to the Roma. It recommends that Roma mainstreaming should be developed on par with gender mainstreaming and accorded the same level of vigilance. The report aims at reconciling the policy and legal discourses relating to the principle of equal treatment and proposes a working definition of the duty to desegregate in the framework of EU programming and monitoring. It argues that such duty can effectively address the shortcomings identified in 2000, when the Racial Equality Directive was adopted.
