The document attached describes the harsh reality of the position of the Roma in the Czech Republic. Several attempts at communicating this situation to the relevant EU and UN bodies have already been made. Only a very few of those we contacted responded to us, and unfortunately we were forced to contact them repeatedly. The tone of the responses is the same from all of the institutions we were mistakenly hoping would help us in our fight against human rights violations. It seems that none of them wants to take responsibility. Rather, these organizations persist in setting dates for summits, meetings, and conferences aimed at the eventual realization of solutions – meetings that have no results in practice. This decadent bureaucracy is a ridiculous waste of the little our nation produces in the form of tax revenue.

According to the Fundamental Rights Agency, the Czech Republic has not implemented sufficient methods/approaches toward the fight against racism and xenophobia. The country is one of the worst-performing in Europe in this respect. In such cases the EU is obligated to intercede and assist the Member State concerned, even if it does not consider the issue much of a priority. Despite its evident inability to intercede, the EU has supported the upcoming Durban Review Conference in April. The original conference in 2001 established four areas in which the Roma are in need of assistance and which must be addressed. They are:  Housing, education, employment and political participation. Eight years later, without state support, the Roma continue to strive to improve the situation in these areas. What can we expect from a critique by institutions which do not even have the means with which to implement their conclusions in their own Member States? We cannot continue to merely witness this pervasive hypocrisy. Now is the right time for state measures and the introduction of proposals that strongly support them.

Roma representative and Hungarian MEP Lívia Járóka called on Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek to continue the work of the French EU Presidency and prioritize the Roma Community Strategy. However, as far as demographic changes are concerned, the Czech EU Presidency is only able to see the economy. It emphasizes the need to deal with the current economic situation by promoting a thorough understanding of the economy. How can Járóka expect her proposal to be achieved when the majority of Roma are not appreciated by the school system, and the majority of Roma children are in “special” schools – schools intended for the mentally disabled – irrespective of their intellectual capacity? There is just one Roma conference prepared within the framework of the Czech EU Presidency, on the topic of Defining an EU Integrated Platform for Roma Inclusion. For the rest, the lax indifference displayed to the unbearable fate of this entire ethnic group is absolutely abhorrent and cannot be considered the product of a progressive society. 

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