Published: May 17, 2021.
MOSCOW, May 17 (Sputnik), Jonathan Rowson – The European Union and its member states have been urged to act rapidly to tackle a growing humanitarian crisis within the bloc’s Romani population, which has long faced deep health, educational, and economic inequalities, as the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps through impoverished communities in countries such as Hungary and Slovakia.
The Roma are Europe’s largest ethnic minority, and an estimated 6 million Romani people live in the countries of the European Union, according to data published by the Council of Europe.
Up to 80% of Romani people surveyed in a 2016 European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights study said that they lived below their country’s “at-risk-of-poverty threshold,” and many still live in segregated settlements, noted for their poor access to health care services, overcrowded housing, and sub-par schooling.
Speakers
Jonathan Lee, the advocacy and communications manager of the European Roma Rights Centre.
“If your only experience of the state, and particularly medical personnel, is terror, discrimination and abuse, why would you trust them all of a sudden when they say you need to have a vaccine?” Lee said.
Aladar Horvath, a leading Romani activist and the president of the Roma Parliament organization
“In the past year, the government has spent 3,000 billion forints [$10.2 billion] on crisis management (of which experts estimate that 2,000 billion went to people and businesses close to the government), with no support to alleviate the suffering of the poorest settlements and strata. We were left alone,” Horvath said.
Peter Pollak, Slovak member of European Parliament.
“I strongly believe that EU Member States should be held accountable for their action or non-action. Otherwise the EU risks losing its credibility for investing and financing something that has brought little or no improvement on the lives of so many EU citizens as Roma are,” Pollak said.
Jonathan Rowson 