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Roma School Desegregation Policies in Romania FLORIN MOISA Motto: I haven’t seen a single Romani child come from a segregated environment and still succeed in life. — Costel Bercus, Roma Education Fund In education, the best words to describe any progress are “not enough,” and, when talking about school desegregation, there is plenty of room for improvement .1 School segregation seems to be a long-term presence in the Romanian educational system, and only after 2003 did it become an issue debatable by educators, Roma activists, and politicians (see the interview with Costel Bercus in this book). The issue has been shaped through the years by a host of factors, including the European Union accession process, the emergence of anti-discrimination legislation, the improved ability of Roma activists to monitor discrimination cases, and international interest in the subject. It is obvious that the issue of school desegregation appeared after the progress made in the adoption of Romania’s first anti-discrimination law in 2000,2 as part of the pre-accession to the European Union by fulfilling the so-called Copenhagen criteria for the protection of national minorities .3 Romania was one of the accession countries that started quite early on the path to implement the “Race Directive.”4 The early adoption of the 1 Interview with Liliana Preoteasa, General Director, General Directorate Education and Long Life Learning, May 21, 2009 in Bucharest. 2 Government Ordinance no. 137/2000 on the elimination of all forms of discrimination. An English version is available on the Internet at: http://www.minelres.lv/ NationalLegislation/Romania/Romania_antidiscrim_English.htm 3 Membership requires that a candidate country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, respect for, and protection of, minorities , the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union. Membership presupposes the candidate’s ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic, and monetary union. 4 Council Directive 2000/43/EC of June 29, 2000 implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin, published in the Official Journal L 180, 19/07/2000 P. 0022 – 0026. It is available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/ 284 Ten Years After anti-discrimination ordinance5 has been praised by international actors and by Romanian civil society. Until 2006, the law was amended several times to bring it in line with the Race Equality Directive (RED).6 Currently it exceeds the minimum standards imposed by RED.7 The activity of the National Council for Combating Discrimination (NCCD) played a role in the awareness of Romanian society to discrimination . Out of 4,260 complaints registered, 541 (12.6 percent) were related to ethnicity, and out of those only seven decisions were made in relation to the school segregation issue for direct or indirect discrimination .8 Perhaps the most relevant is the so-called Cehei case. It was the first case when NCCD sanctioned the school system for segregating Roma children.9 In fact, Roma NGOs contributed decisively to bring about the desired change right form the beginning. In the case of the Cehei school (Salaj county), Roma children were placed in an annex to the main school building, separately, under bad conditions and without any real attention LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32000L0043:en:HTML, last visited on June 6, 2009. 5 Ordinance no.137/2000. 6 A group of active organizations interested in the issue gathered together in an “antidiscrimination coalition” and launched advocacy activities in order to promote changes of the law, for a better compliance with the principles of the Race Directive or recommended by various other pieces of international legislation, such as the General Recommendations of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) of the Council of Europe. The following NGOs are between members of the anti-discrimination coalition: Active Watch – Press Monitoring Agency, ACCEPT Association, CRJ – The Centre of Legal Resources, The Association for the Protection of Human Rights – Helsinki Committee, CPE – The Centre Partnership for Equality, ROMANI CRISS, “Pro Europe” League, Roma Civic Alliance, Public Policy Institute, etc. 7 Several revisions of the legislation were made over the years, defining the National Council for Combating Discrimination (NCCD) as an autonomous public body, responsible for activities in the area of anti-discrimination, undertaking activities on prevention of acts of discrimination, mediation, investigation, monitoring, taking official notes and sanctioning acts of discrimination...

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