Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-01-16-Speech-3-416"
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"en.20080116.18.3-416"2
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"Mr President, Roma are neither the successors of the ancient Roman Empire, nor the contemporary inhabitants of Rome. They are neither a nation without a state nor a national minority. They are an ethnocultural community, still cherishing its tribal tradition, and a pan-European community which was kept in slavery in pre-modern and early modern Europe, which was sent to extermination camps by the Fascist regimes and enclosed in the states turned into prisons by the Communist dictatorship. They became free European citizens after the end of the Cold War and the first post-bipolar European Union enlargement.
Being marginalised and excluded over the centuries, the Roma community found itself excluded from European wealth and tried to protect itself by challenging the European order. Today, now that Europe is reconciled with itself, should it be reconciled with the Roma population as well, or should it declare and treat the Roma as second-class citizens who are again to be concentrated in some Member States transformed into Roma ghettos? To these questions there is a single answer: the Roma issue is a European issue. It is not a simple issue but a huge challenge – a common challenge which we must cope with jointly. Otherwise we will be unable to integrate the Roma community into European society and bring it into the European order.
This is a cultural and social matter. The European Union should mobilise funds, develop programmes and organise specific institutional structures in order to assist the national authorities of the countries where the Roma choose to settle in order to offer this community a decent material life, a proper education, a fair opportunity to compete with others, free of any discrimination, and a cohesive sense of their existence within European civilisation. We expect the European Commission to take the right steps in that direction and to keep the European Parliament fully informed on the progress achieved."@en1
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