THE OSCE CHALLENGED - NHC/IHF

Part III: FULL AND EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ROMA AND SINTI WITHIN THE OSCE AREA
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workshop on roma and sinti
A spirit for a living body

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In Maastricht, the OSCE Action Plan on Improving the Situation of Roma and Sinti within the OSCE Area (OSCE PC.DEC/566, download pdf) was endorsed by the Ministerial Council. The workshop on Roma and Sinti (?) mainly addressed the question of how to put the Plan into action. A group of Roma and Sinti activists put forward recommendations, formulating their own priorities and suggesting new areas of Roma-related policies. Government officials appealed to the Roma and Sinti present to help implementing the Action Plan. Furthermore, ongoing actions and best practices were discussed. The ODIHR Contact Point for Roma and Sinti presented a synopsis of institutions and policy initiatives on Roma and Sinti within the OSCE, the UN, the Council of Europe and the EU, which showed the tremendous progress made in this field since 1990.
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Report by Mr. Nicolae Gheorghe, OSCE ODIHR Adviser on Roma and Sinti Issues.

This workshop brought together senior officers of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the OSCE High Commissioner, the Head of the Permanent Mission of Romania to the OSCE, senior experts (as, for example, Ms. Josephine Verspaget), representatives of Dutch NGOs, international NGOs active in Roma and Sinti affairs (such as the Brussels-based European Roma Information Office), and members of the Roma Working Group on the OSCE Plan of Action.

The Maastricht OSCE Ministerial Council meeting was the culmination-point of the process of mainstreaming the Roma and Sinti issues as a durable component of the OSCE Human Dimension of the OSCE, by the endorsement by the OSCE-participating states of the Action Plan on Improving the Situation of Roma and Sinti within the OSCE Area. The representatives of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs reminded that the Roma and Sinti Issues were among the human dimension priorities of the Netherlands OSCE Chairmanship, as proved not only by the adoption of the Action Plan, but also by organising a Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting focused on these issues , by setting up the Roma Working Group on the OSCE Plan of Action, and by including recommendations on Roma and Sinti in other OSCE documents adopted by the Maastricht Ministerial Council, such as the OSCE Action Plan to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings (Decision no. 557, download pdf), Decision No. 4 - Tolerance and Non- Discrimination (MC.DEC/4/03. Download pdf), and the OSCE Strategy to Address Threats to Security and Stability in the Twenty-first Century (MC(11).JOUR/2. Download pdf)

The participants to the Maastricht NGO workshop reiterated in their debate the main message of the Action Plan: to reinforce the actions of the OSCE-participating states (and of relevant OSCE institutions and structures) targeting the eradication of discrimination against Roma and Sinti, and to ensure that Roma and Sinti people are able to play a full and equal part in the democratic institutions of their countries and in the processes of modernization of societies throughout the OSCE area.
The formal contributions and the frank dialogue among participants in the Maastricht workshop have been focused on how to “put the Plan into action”, a formula which is not new, but which may epitomise the working spirit of the whole process which led to the elaboration of the Action Plan as it is now.
The OSCE senior officers present at the workshop expressed once more their satisfaction and surprise to meet again with some of those young, well-trained and dedicated Romani activists and experts, who have been active in the ODIHR CPRSI (OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions, Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues) –led process of bringing a continuous and fresh intellectual input of the Roma and Sinti associations from various OSCE-participating states and from various NGOs into the standing OSCE Working Group in charge of drafting and negotiating the text of the Action Plan. It was this group of Roma and Sinti activists who brought to Maastricht their own recommendations on the Action Plan for Roma and Sinti (?). This “Roma document” is closely related to OSCE Action Plan, almost “mirroring” it, as it was formulated by one of the speakers in the Maastricht workshop. Nevertheless, the Romani activists and experts have formulated their own priorities for expected actions to be undertook by the states (as, for example, when urging for implementing durable solutions for Roma refugees and IDPs from Kosovo); and/or suggesting new areas of Roma-related policy-making such as promoting linguistic and cultural rights, monitoring freedom of movement across borders, etcetera.

Ambassador Liviu Bota, Head of Romanian Mission to the OSCE and Chair of the OSCE Working Group throughout the year 2003, stressed the fact that Action Plan is “not a dogma but a living document”, whose life and added value will be tested by its capacity to promote institutional changes in the OSCE-participating states and to bring real effects for the large and diverse Roma and Sinti populations in the OSCE area. He shared with the participants in the workshop his personal sympathy for the idea, formulated by some Romani representatives, to have the OSCE Action Plan fully implemented before the year 2018, in which year 1000 years of Roma history will be celebrated by those who claim (based on some archival evidence) to be the descendants of a large group of people who have been displaced by wars in North-Western India, forming the origins of the world-wide dispersed communities currently named Roma, Sinti, Gitanos, Gypsies, etcetera.

The Roma speakers underlined that their participation in the process of drafting a OSCE document of the calibre of the Action Plan provided them with an unique chance of learning more about the OSCE human dimension “culture”, its vision, commitments and organisational language.
They expressed the need for more information and training of Roma and Sinti activists about functioning of various OSCE human dimension institutions which are explicitly tasked to implement various provisions in the Action Plan, such as the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities, the Representative for Freedom of Media, the OSCE Field Missions, etcetera).

Government representatives took the chance of the Maastricht workshop to appeal to the Roma and Sinti who were present to be active participants in translating the words of the Action Plan in real deeds, to share the “ownership” of this political process together with the OSCE-participating states, whose governments have the main responsibility to implement the OSCE commitments.

Some ongoing actions and “best practices” have been discussed and re-assessed in the framework of the Action Plan; concrete examples have been provided by some NGOs that are already involved in projects such as those dealing with the situation of Roma in the countries involved in the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe or by the experts working in the field of Roma and media, and further, by NGOs providing legal assistance to those victims of discrimination who have the courage to bring their cases to the courts throughout the OSCE area.

The ODIHR CPRSI stressed its experience of serving as clearing-house on Roma-related policies initiated by states and increasingly by international organisations. The Action Plan is further tasking the ODIHR CPRSI to better assist all relevant actors by promoting more coordination and cooperation in order to avoid duplication of efforts. A modest working tool was produced by the ODIHR CPRSI and submitted to the Maastricht workshop in the form of a synopsis of institutional resources and main initiatives on Roma and Sinti as currently existing and as forthcoming in the UN, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the EU. A quick look at this table may illustrate the tremendous achievements, since 1990, in the process of awareness-raising of the particular problems of Roma and Sinti in most of OSCE-participating states and at all levels of the international community. The adoption of the Action Plan in Maastricht is proof of the capacity of the OSCE to continue be a front-runner and an innovator in these processes. Performance on the ground is matched by bringing together the political class in particular states, the various (sometime fragmented) segments of the international community, and the highly diverse populations of Roma and Sinti themselves. One of the needed ingredients for the success of such complex and challenging targeted action is to ask from each OSCE-participating state (and to assist them to achieve) more clarity and coherence in their Roma-related policy initiatives and in the politics of implementation of their commitments toward their citizens. For the time being, the good intentions proved by adopting Roma–related policy documents and even legislation are not enough matched by the an institutional practice and organisational habits within and among the various segments of the government of the same state, sometimes even among the various relevant desks within the same Ministry.

The “Maastricht spirit”,as felt by the ODIHR Advisor for Roma and Sinti Issues as a participant in the workshop and an OSCE executive officer, may contribute, among others, to bring closer the pieces of the puzzle which are generously (sometime eclectically) collected in the text of the Action Plan and to bind them in that “living body” that may bring real difference for the everyday life of the fast growing group of persons, women and men, throughout the OSCE area who are identified by others (frequently in a prejudiced way) as Gypsies/Tsiganes, and who proudly self-identify as Roma, Sinti, Gitanos, Egyptians, or, simply, as human beings.

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