SS Reborn In Hungary

"You Will Die Here..."

As Western Europe continues to embrace the dead religion of Nazism those in Eastern Europe perfect its jackboot past. It was a dark chapter in Hungarian history that the "white" locals readily backed the invading Nazis. Designing their four point flag, the Hungarian Nazis were just as vicious and rabid as their German counterparts. These Hungarian fascist were ruthless in their attacks on the "undesirables"... the Roma being one of their favorite targets.

Today the Jobbik party has taken back up the cause of the fascist who came before them. Winning 16% of the vote in their last election the party has doubled its presence in the Hungarian government. But none of that matters to the foot soldiers the party puts out on the streets. These are the hired guns the modern Nazi movement relies upon to do its dirty work.

In Hungary these black uniformed scum organize marches through Romani neighborhoods and in front of Jewish houses of worship. The two targets are treated with equal vitriolic hatred. But it is the Roma who are readily attacked when the Hungarian racist get the opportunity to do so. For these animals the front door to a Romani family's home is not much of a barrier to be overcome.

In a recent march through Devecser, Hungary the Jobbik supporters were heard shouting in unison "You will die here..." while tossing stones and bottles at the Romani homes. The small town is barely 5,000 strong so it was blatantly obvious that the 1,000 plus mob was mostly bussed in. Yet this display of blazon racism has received absolutely no condemnation from the European Union or even Hungarian politicians alike.

The Romani community in Devecser were fortunately left without any deaths or reported injuries when the Jobbik thugs left. Damages to their impoverished homes were all that remained when the mob got back on their buses and left town. Damages that the poor Romani community don't have money to repair.

All the while we here at Alder's Ledge remember that Hungary is one of the places that France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Holland, England, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, and Austria want to send their Romani populations to. France being the leader as of late in their harsh stances on deportation and expulsions of French born Roma and recent immigrants.

Hungary is a place where the socialist refer to themselves as "the real Hungarians" and the Roma as "invaders". It is a place where Roma have had their homes torched and their children shot while trying to flee attacks. It is a place where Roma women can not trust doctors to give them proper medical attention without the threat of forced sterilization. Yet once again... this is where President Francois Hollande wishes to expel France's Romani population.

May G-d have mercy on the Rom, for it is clear Hungary will not.

Hungary and the Neo-Nazis

Jobbik, the legal arm of Nazism in Hungary.
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Jobbik should had been banned much like the neo-Nazi organization just banned in Germany today. Instead Jobbik continues to flourish as it spreads its messege of hate across Hungary and abroad. Instead Jobbik remains free to enlist more and more "stormtroopers" into its Nazi army. Instead it continues to attack and harrass a portion of Hungary's population that the government refuses to protect.
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Spread the word about Jobbik and help fight the spread of fascist groups like these. In doing this you help make it more and more difficult for groups like Jobbik to gain power by working under the radar. And in doing this you help put pressure on Hungary to stop supporting Jobbik and its Nazi scum.
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"Peace! Rule of Law! No fascists!"

And the Jack-Boots Go Marching On...
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And on... and on...
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The Roma of Hejoszalonta united against the storm troopers the Magyar Garda. With their community linked arm in arm they shouted "Peace! Rule of Law! No Fascists!". And yet the black uniformed Jobbik army still went marching on.
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Stomping their jack-boots and lifting torches the neo-Nazi army stormed the village of 850, only 350 of which are Roma. Their angry tone was amplified in the blaring of their heavy metal rock music. The sound of the bass drum mocked the sound of war drums as the "Magyars" attempted to spread terror amongst their intended victims.
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In March the Jobbik party had organized a larger march in Gyongyospata where around 3,000 of the black shirts raised their torches and whips. There they had marched up and down the village streets as they shouted their anti-Semitic and anti Roma chants. All in the name of Nationalistic pride.
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"Jobbik were deliberately provoking them. Parents held the teenagers back because the fascists wanted an excuse to attack. It would have been a bloodbath," an observer noted in Hejoszalonta. Had the Roma youth been allowed to lash out the battle would have been a "bloodbath". The homes of Roma and suspected Roma would have been set ablaze. The women and children would have been beaten to an inch of their lives and their men shot. This is how Jobbik treats Hungarian Roma.
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When Roma and Human Rights Activist petitioned the government to form a "human chain" between the Magyar Garda and the Roma houses the government forbid them to do so. Instead they allowed the Jobbik clan to march right up to the Romany houses with torches ready. Armed men with fire in hand were allowed to terrorize the Roma children held captive behind chicken wire.
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In the past Hungary and much of the Eastern Block nations have witnessed and participated in pogroms that start much like the scenario listed above (thankfully this one ended without bloodshed). Jobbik and its Magyar Garda allies have committed such acts of genocidal ferocity. Men, women, and children are all considered "targets" simply because they are Rom.
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Most of the time these scenes end with Roma houses being burnt out. In the Czech Republic these scenes end with a Roma body found filled with holes. In Romania these scenes end with a Roma boy found bloody face down in a muddy river. Yet Jobbik still seems capable of holding its seats in Hungarian government?
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This sort of fascist behaviour can not be rewarded by the outside world. Other European countries need to apply pressure on Hungary and force change in its ever leaning right culture (but most of them too are leaning the same direction these days). And most of all, America needs to be more vocal in its defense of what we consider to be inalienable human rights. We need to condemn these kind of acts where ever and whenever they occur... regardless of who is committing them.
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"Peace! Rule of Law! NO FASCISTS!"
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Civil society resistance to Nazis rising in Hungary

From Romea.cz
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First joint protests held by anti-racism NGOs
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Last Saturday the Hungarian opposition Jobbik party held a demonstration against alleged "Gypsy terror" in the settlement of Hejoszalonta, roughly 150 km to the east of Budapest. Hungarian civil society confronted the demonstration.
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Roughly 600 sympathizers and MPs of the neo-Nazi Jobbik party met in Hejoszalonta. The party won 17 % of the votes in last year's parliamentary elections, the first time it has ever held seats in the Hungarian Parliament. Some demonstrators were wearing uniforms of the Hungarian Guard, an organization which the courts have dissolved for its similarity to the Hungarian fascist brigades in operation at the end of the Second World War. The Hungarian Guard, like the dissolved Workers' Party in the Czech Republic, has been exacerbating inter-ethnic relationships in society for years. Their agitation eventually led to homicidal attacks against Roma people during which a minimum of nine people, some of them children, died and dozens of people have been injured, some of them severely. After the Hungarian Guard was dissolved, alternative organizations immediately sprang up with names such as the "New National Guard" or "Hungarian Crew".
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At the rally, Jobbik representatives also criticized the government's economic policy. The governing Fidesz party, in their view, has become the party of the rich. Hungarian MP Marton Szegedi (Jobbik) told the rally: "They take absolutely no care of the ordinary farmer in this country.”
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Organizations for the protection of civil and human rights, such as Amnesty International, organized a counter-demonstration last Saturday. In their call for a counter-demonstration, they declared that "it is not possible to pronounce Roma people the generators of all evil. It is unacceptable for various extremists to attempt to take justice into their own hands." They also demand an end to the discrimination of Roma in the country.
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Agnes Daroczi, a Roma political writer and chair of the Roma association Pralipe, speaking in front of roughly 150 counter-demonstrators on Saturday, said: "Many of us are terribly poor only because we were born Roma. We need a color-blind policy that will reach those on the fringes of society."
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Ilonka Balogh, a Roma woman from Hejoszalonta, was aghast at the fact that police did not prevent the neo-Nazi gathering from taking place near her home and feared for her family's safety. Jozsef Anderko, the mayor of the village who unwillingly permitted Jobbik to hold the gathering there, admitted that pickpocketing is a problem in Hejoszalonta, but generally evaluated relations among people in the village as good.
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A tutor from the local school who is an ethnic Hungarian also participated in Saturday's neo-Nazi march. Roma women from the village are now drafting a petition to have her removed from her position. "At the nursery school, 90 % of the children are Roma. It is not appropriate that she teach there now," Ilonka Balogh said.
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The Jobbik party is demanding that authorities keep files on so-called Roma criminality. According to party representatives, members of the Roma minority are the main cause of increased crime in the countryside. Other parliamentary parties have now jointly taken a strong exception to the Jobbik demands for the first time ever.
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Hungarian Guard brigades also recently marched through Gyöngyöspat, a village in the northeast of the country. For more than two weeks they literally terrorized Roma inhabitants there, who stopped leaving their homes or sending their children to school as a result. Under pressure from police and protests from abroad, they eventually had to end their marches. This is the first time representatives of various civic associations have met to protest these racist actions.
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Amnesty International and other organizations from around the world demanded of the Hungarian government in March that it better ensure security for members of the Roma minority. At the end of March, the trial began in Budapest of four men charged with organizing a minimum of nine homicidal attacks on Roma families throughout the entire country in 2008-09.
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This coming Saturday, the Czech political party DSSS is organizing a similar march in the North Bohemian village of Krupka. Various civic associations are organizing counter-demonstration
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Article Taken From Romea.cz
http://www.romea.cz/english/index.php?id=detail&detail=2007_2313
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Volatile mix of Roma, Vigilantes Faces Hungary Town - Reuters

From AlertNet, A Thomson Reuters Foundation Service
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Volatile mix of Roma, vigilantes faces Hungary town
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Hungary, March 30 (Reuters) - In the past three years Hungary's Roma, or gypsies, have been shot dead in their homes, killed by hand grenades and attacked with petrol bombs. Now they are going to be policed by right-wing vigilantes.
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Next month, the far-right Jobbik party, which gained its first toehold in parliament last year on a right-wing tidal wave that put the Fidesz party in power, will field 200 vigilantes in the hardluck northeastern town of Hajduhadhaz.
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"This will be a kind of demonstration," said Gergely Rubi, a Jobbik MP and the local leader of the Brighter Future Vigilante Association.
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"The government likes to sweep gypsy crime under the rug but that leads nowhere," Rubi said. "If the government can't guarantee our safety they shouldn't wonder we organise our own defence."
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Hajduhadhaz, a town of 13,000, some 30 percent of whom are Roma, was once a prosperous agricultural centre with a wood-products factory but is pretty much a perfect breeding ground for trouble today.
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Unemployment is 40 percent, many households survive on $150 month and on a recent visit there was little activity beyond a handful of publicly employed gardeners tending the main square.
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"The lack of order and security in Hajduhadhaz is horrid," said Marika Ferenczi, a 65-year-old retired railway worker. "A lot of people dare not sleep, fearing who might lurk outside."
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She is not a Roma, but she does not think vigilante justice is the way to go.
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"For (vigilantes) to insult and provoke everyone on the streets, I'm against that... All this is tied to extremists.
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"Should I name them? Jobbik."
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Mayor Denes Csafordi said the police would not stop the vigilantes from patrolling, as long as they break no laws, but predicted they would not cure the town's ills.
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"I find it deeply unsettling that self-styled arbiters of truth should descend upon this town and try to tell us how to get our house in order. They come here for a week or two... They will not solve anything, only generate more problems," he said.
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STRUGGLE FOR INTEGRATION
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Hungary has long struggled to reintegrate its Roma, who lost their jobs en masse when communism collapsed. A Roma generation has grown up since then with few memories of regular work, many of them living on welfare and a revolving door to jail.
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Friction between Roma and the rest of population is endemic. In 2008, two Roma were shot dead in their home in northeastern Hungary, firebombs were lobbed into three Roma homes west of Budapest and shots were fired at three homes nearer the capital.
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A group of men accused in those killings, and woundings of dozens of Roma, went on trial in Budapest last week, but the effort to solve the crimes does little to ease the tensions, which are compounded by recent economic woes.
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The centre-right government, which parted ways with the IMF last year and needs market trust to roll over the highest debt burden in the region, recently bowed to market pressure to trim social spending.
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Unemployment benefits will be cut to three months from nine and public employment -- often the only type of job going in places like Hajduhadhaz -- is capped at four hours a day, with a monthly pay of $150 per month.
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"The $150 doesn't pay our bills, let alone cover our living costs," Balint Bernath, a local Roma leader, said.
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"We voted for this government because they promised hundreds of thousands of jobs. It's been nearly a year. We can't see them."
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"They want us to stop crime," he added. "If it goes on like this, they take the jobs and they take the aid, then crime will rise in Hajduhadhaz, and all over the country, I assure you."
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FAR RIGHT RIDES IN
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While Jobbik got into parliament on rhetoric vilifying the Roma, Fidesz grabbed a two-thirds majority on promises of a million new jobs in 10 years and a return of public safety in two weeks.
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However, Fidesz has struggled to boost the economy and has yet to bring unemployment lower.
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Meanwhile, Jobbik continues playing the Roma card. Its vigilantes held a rally in a conflict-ridden village in northern Hungary earlier this month where 2,000 people, many in black uniform, marched through the Roma settlement on the outskirts.
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"Had we not ordered police to critical scenes in significant numbers, ugly things could have happened," Prime Minister Viktor Orban said afterwards.
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In Hajduhadhaz, Roma say the vigilantes only add oil to the flames, and promised they would not back down.
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"They have not dared come to these areas yet," Bernath said, speaking near a litter-strewn shanty town where a few brick houses stood among a scattering of adobe shacks and makeshift huts with walls made of blankets cast on wooden poles.
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"If the vigilantes don't escalate this, we won't either. If they declare war on us, I will declare war on them, too."
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Csafordi, elected mayor in October, said the local Roma were isolated, impoverished and that unemployment will take years to erase.
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"I believe the country, like our town, cannot afford pseudo measures any more," he said. "We need to do more than trying to be popular. We need to dig down to the root of the problem."
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CIVIL UNREST
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The government says it plans to boost public employment again, but welfare benefits will be linked to work.
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"The only way to get welfare will be through work," Mihaly Varga, state secretary of the Prime Minister's Office, told state radio.
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Peter Kreko, an analyst for the research firm Political Capital, rejected this approach.
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"There is no way public works projects alone can employ all these people," he said.
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He warned that in a worst-case scenario, Hungary's Roma could end up in revolt, much like Slovakia's Roma revolted in 2004 when government measures stripped them of aid with few alternatives and they broke into stores in search for food.
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"Of course, it's not automatic, it needs an ideological catalyst, which is a given now because of Jobbik," Kreko said.
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"All we need then is a spark for the mix to explode."
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Source
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http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/feature-volatile-mix-of-roma-vigilantes-faces-hungary-town

Hungary Hungry for Pogroms

Fuel for the Fire
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With the rise of the far-right taking Europe like wild fire the eastern parts of Europe are falling fast. Hungary has long been a flirt when it comes to the Nazi style politics spreading westward. Worst yet, Hungary has a long past as a fascist conspirator (hence their arrow flag and arm bands). And that history just doesn't seem to want to go away.
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Hajduhadhaz, a small town of around 13,000 people is just the next battle field for the far-right in Hungary. With the government's recent law linking welfare (a source of income that many Hungarians rely upon) payments to the cleanliness of your home and property. This fascist inspired law was directed by the far-right to target the Romani living in places like Hajduhadhaz.
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One Rom, Balint Bernath claims that the government makes it a habit to come into their homes and check their bathrooms and toilets. He also claims that a neighbor lost his welfare payments because a snooping official found a single spot of dog excrement in his yard. It isn't clear if the government is enforcing this law on all Hungarians or only the Roma minority.
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It is clear however that in places like Hajduhadhaz the far-right political party Jobbik is calling the shots. The parliamentary deputy, 32 year-old Gergely Rubi, for example. People like him claim that the Roma, and the Roma alone, are the cause for all ills that have befallen Hungary. He claims that the Roma are thieves, rapist, violent criminals, and just plain plunderers and pillagers.
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Mr. Rubi does not however admit that the policies his party is pushing have suppressed the local economies by restricting the ability of the common man to start up business or engage in business of his own choosing. Instead his party has sought to restore their mythically pure Magyar race back to its position of authority in Hungary. So like the Nazi's Aryans, the Jobbik party is attempting to divide the races and conquer the minorities.
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One portion of the Jobbik argument claims that the Roma are outsiders in the belief that they are "pagans", "Muslims", or even "witches". However in Hajduhadhaz the Roma are seemingly flocking the new Pentecostal Church. They are "finding religion" in the depths of economic repression. And this in a way feeds the Jobbik belief that the Roma are outsiders. The Jobbik party flocks to the old Calvinist Church.
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As of late the differences between the two not so different ethnic groups (most Roma are not nomadic anymore due the old policies of the Communist Eastern Block). Jobbik has set up programmes through out the Hungarian countryside. Their goal is clear, if only to them, to restore "law and order". To the outsiders (us and the Roma) their goal is even more clear... to defeat and destroy an entire ethnic group... genocide.
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Unlike the good old days of Hungarian socialism and even communism these days at least some of the criminals are being brought to justice (or a version of it). Trials of Hungarian murders are scheduled to begin soon. However these small steps are most likely just to appease the EU and UN. It is unclear as of now if the Hungarian government will actually make any real strides in stopping the Jobbik party and its plans for more pogroms. Or if Hungary will simply respond to the crimes after the fact.
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"They now face sentences between 15 years and life in prison, depending on their degree of culpability. The case greatly exacerbated the atmosphere at the time, Roma people even prepared to emigrate en masse," said Attila Petöfi of the Hungarian National Bureau of Investigation.
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Kill and maim people based on race and hatred for an entire people in Hungary and you might get off with just 15 years. A portion of that might not even be served in prison either. This is why I am sceptical about Hungarian commitment to stopping the Jobbik fascist and their demented minions.
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Source Documents
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BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/9435803.stm
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Romea.cz
http://www.romea.cz/english/index.php?id=detail&detail=2007_2290
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AP
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gCz5qY2k_d0HERoJBBkszj0UwlGQ?docId=c3e91b5a8d184e48a1b45bf69d1d5a89
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Caboodle.Hu
http://www.caboodle.hu/nc/news/news_archive/single_page/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=8899

And the Jackboots Go Marching On...

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And On... And On...
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Jobbik... in one word this nationalistic Hungarian political party can be summed up as "Racist". Like their ancestors, the Hungarian Guard, these Nazi minions are on a mission. To seek and destroy their enemies. Enemies they label as "damn Gypsies" and the looming "Left". (Quotes taken from "Attila")
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Armed with the political muscle their party has garnished in recent elections, the minions are massing. Their ignorant masses are gathering. And the jackboots are being laced up with ever growing vigor.
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In a recent posted article on Politics.Hu (Hungary) a columnist decided to attack the ever popular nationalistic party. Despite the fact that the article was far from an iron fist in a velvet glove the minions of Jobbik showed up for the battle. And their verbal abuse, if it can be called that, showed just how fervent they are when it comes to the Roma.
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But before I can get to their little verbal volleys I may need to explain Hungarian xenophobia first.
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In Hungary the Jobbik party is still rather small and at times disproportionately represented in local government. But their reach from the halls of government out onto the streets is far from "small". It is on the streets that Jobbik first grew its numbers. It was there that they found a link with the common man. And it is there that they fed the general public their racist hook, line, and sinker.
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Using the Roma as a target of opportunity, the Jobbik leaders have exploited fears that had long resided under the surface of the Hungarian public. They claim that the Roma are parasites upon the Hungarian public by associating the Roma with "welfare".
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When Jobbik leaders come before Hungarian Parliament in a Nazi era uniform (currently banned in Hungary) nobody seems to care enough to levy fines or jail the politicians. Instead the skinheads appear to be patting their "brave leader" Gábor Vona on the back. They don't even seem to mind his usual rants, rather racist in nature, about the Roma.
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This is how the racist banter of the Jobbik party resonates with their voters:
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"Vona Gábor is, was and always will (I hope) be a militant nationalist," Elle began. "You know, people who faults Vona for doing this are very short-sighted. And a society that sees the steeply climbing number of births of children for whose provision the parents rely on the state, then does not intervene, is culpably negligent. What do these people want to see happen in Hungary: something like in Brazilian, where the army or police regularly gun down the legions of abandoned street children, or human organ harvesters catch them for lucrative spare parts?
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Let’s face it: Hungary is under heavy international attack from the so-called ‘left’. The Hungarian ‘left’ appear to have friends throughout the API and the Bretton Woods institutions. The possibility of Hungary being brought down economically by this combination is not remote. What, in such an event, will happen to the ever-growing number of Gipsy children whom the state can no longer support? Vona is absolutely right. The government must assess and correct heavy Gipsy dependence on the state for child support."
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We are supposed to ignore the racist remarks of this Elle character however. The reason... we are just members of the "left" and are conspiring with the Hungarian "left". Anyone who sides with the Roma are clearly just "short-sighted".
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But Elle's remarks were just the tip of the Jobbik spear.
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"Agreed, the last thing Hungary needs is to be out numbered by those dam gypsies FFS or at least deport them to Mongolia" -Attila
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Just so those of you know... FFS stands for "For **** Sake". That is how great public speakers demonstrate their grasp of oration.
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Eisenhower (the poster not the President) pointed out the following...
"According to a recent poll by Szonda Ipsos, Fidesz
approval rate among likely voters is 60 percent, a 3
percent drop from the previous month. The socialist
support is 20 percent.
In February, Jobbik approval rate stands at 12
percent, which is a 2 percent increase from the
previous month. LMP approval rate is 6 percent.
So where is the decrease in Jobbik parties
popularity? Again this liberal article is deceptive."
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He failed however to defend his party's racist banter.
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Elle than rejoined the fight with the following:
"Jewish Holocaust is still priority to Hungarian Holocaust.’ The latter’s supporters are clamorous. We could become more so. And there has been a milestone here. Becsület Napja is now established, and the anti-nationals do not dare to deride it too loudly. The Kitörés was commemorated this year by Hungarians and Germans, with only some police harassment. It had to be cancelled last year. There’s progress, here.
I am hoping that now that Jobbik is back on the tarmac, the above will be consolidated"
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This is Jobbik's only defense and way to hide its blatant anti-Semitic remarks. They simply make more remarks of the same manner.
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By the way, Hungarians were not killed in the Holocaust. They did however kill hundreds of thousands of Jews as they sided with the Nazis.
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But then the Jobbik minions always turn their war of words back toward the Roma...
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"laughable. Orban wants to increase the voting rights
of gypsy people in the elections. Orban wants to
give extra voting rights for parents in the basis of
the number of their children. Therefore gypsy people
can decide general parlamental elections."
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They just can't resist the opportunity to attack the Roma. They need the Roma so as to feed the flames of their blind hatred. They need the Roma to justify their xenophobic fears of the outside world. And for them, the Roma justify the so called wrongs and hardships that have befallen them and their beloved Hungary. Amazingly all the Roma have to do to be targeted is to simply breathe.
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You can read more if you want by visiting the link below. I however will refrain from pointing out anymore of their mind numbingly stupid racism.
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Source Document for this Post.
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Politics.Hu
http://www.politics.hu/20110218/no-more-mister-nice-radical-nationalist-jobbik

EU Press Release- Roma Intigration Failing

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MEMO/10/701
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Brussels, 21 December 2010
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Roma Integration: First Findings of Roma Task Force and Report on Social Inclusion
In September, the European Commission established an internal Task Force to assess Member States' use of EU funding with regard to the social and economic integration of Roma, Europe's largest ethnic minority (IP/10/1097). This Task Force now reported its initial findings. It noted that while EU funds offer considerable potential for bolstering Roma inclusion, bottlenecks at national, regional and local levels are limiting their effective use by Member States. The Roma Task Force will continue its work in identifying concrete ways to enhance the funds’ uses. The results will be part of an EU framework for national Roma integration strategies in the Member States that will be presented by the Commission in spring 2011, for discussion in the European Parliament and the Council. A new study – released by the Commission today – analysed national Roma inclusion measures in 18 EU countries and identified a series of successful policy approaches. Integrated policies and projects addressing the multiple causes of social exclusion are the best ways to improve the situation of Roma in Europe, the study says.
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First findings of the Roma Task Force
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The Roma Task Force was established following a proposal by Vice-President Viviane Reding, EU Justice Commissioner; László Andor, EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion; and Cecilia Malmström, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs (IP/10/1097). The Task Force sent questionnaires to the 27 Member States regarding their use of EU funds to address the Roma situation.
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The preliminary findings indicate that Member States do not yet properly use EU money for the purpose of an effective social and economic integration of Roma. Weaknesses exist in the development of appropriate strategies and specific measures to address problems faced by Roma. Implementation at national level is problematic because of a lack of know-how and administrative capacity to absorb EU funds. The report also identifies problems in providing national co-financing as well as a lack of involvement by civil society and Roma communities themselves.
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The management of the bulk of EU funding that may benefit Roma integration is shared with Member States, notably through the European Social Fund (ESF), the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and to a lesser extent the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). In May 2010, the EU allowed the use of European regional funding to improve housing for marginalised communities in rural areas (IP/10/589). As is always the case with EU funds, it is up to Member States and managing authorities to come up with viable projects. It is not the European Commission’s role to propose projects (see also MEMO/10/383).

Next steps
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The Commission's Roma Task Force will now identify concrete ways to improve the effectiveness of EU funds in the Member States. These approaches will feed into an EU-level framework for national Roma inclusion strategies, which the Commission plans to adopt in spring 2011.
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New Study on Member States' Projects on Roma Inclusion
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Today's study – carried out on behalf of the Commission – finds that integrated policy approaches designed to tackle the multiple causes of social exclusion affecting Roma are the most successful. Strong political will is also required. Seven of the 18 countries studied have adopted integrated national strategies for Roma inclusion, although these are not always consistently implemented.
Success factors include:
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- effective coordination of policies within national governments and between the national, regional and local levels – such as the national coordination mechanisms set up by Spain and the national Roma strategy in Hungary;
- sustainable programmes with reliable, multi-annual budgets to ensure continuity of results – such as the ACCEDER training programme that began as a temporary project but has since helped 25,000 people find work over a 9-year period in 48 locations across Spain;
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- effective participation and consultation of Roma in inclusion efforts – Austria and Ireland have set up national advisory bodies to consult Roma and Traveller communities on government initiatives, while Romania's Parliament includes a member to represent Roma communities and all Slovene municipalities with Roma populations include at least one Roma councillor;
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- reliable data and evaluation of results – such as initiatives in Slovakia to survey the living conditions and health needs of Roma and Traveller communities.
Background
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The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) and the Roma Education Fund (REF) prepared the comparative study, which looks at measures addressing the situation of Roma living in 18 EU Member States with sizeable Romani populations: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The study analyses successful activities that seek to improve the situation of Roma in non-discrimination and equality policies, education, employment and training, health care services, housing and gender equality.
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A large proportion of the Roma community in the EU is disproportionately affected by unemployment, extreme poverty, poor housing, low health standards and difficult access to education. The EU – since 2007 – has confirmed that while the social and economic integration of disadvantaged Roma people is primarily a responsibility for each country, there is also a role for the EU. A series of Council conclusions have endorsed the Commission’s assessment (in Communications in 2008 and 2010, see IP/10/407 and MEMO/10/121) that more needs to be done to apply the EU framework of legislative, financial and policy coordination tools to the promote Roma inclusion.
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Today's Roma Task Force findings on the use of EU funds and the comparative study on national Roma Inclusion Measures will be used by the Commission in its further work with Member States on the successful integration of the 10-12 million Roma living in the EU.
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More on this memo can be read at-
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/10/701&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
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A review of this Memo will be coming soon. More news about the Roma can be read here on Alder's Ledge and at our FaceBook group: search word - Alder's Ledge.
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Magyar Garda