Paper short abstract:

The European Union, Council of Europe and Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe advocate for European-wide Roma-targeted legal decrees and social policies. In my presentation, I will investigate whether and how these specific decrees and policies help Roma to access equal rights entitled to all European citizens.

Paper long abstract:

Following the vexation with Roma in many European societies, European organizations such as the European Union, Council of Europe and Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe have recently started to advocate for European-wide Roma-targeted legal decrees and social policies. One of the outcomes of such tendency is likely to be that Roma, instead of citizenship or minority provisions will enjoy a direct legal protection and policy support qua being members of a vulnerable European Roma community. The question my presentation will raise is whether with the introduction of specific Roma-targeted legal decrees and social policies, we simultaneously do not witness a tendency to build upon a somehow odd or even diverging qualifier for accessing equal rights entitled to all European citizens. In the same vein, 'Roma' as the qualifying adjective of the politics of inclusion could evoke that they, instead of being integral part, are merely associated with European societies and thus in a specific position to be allowed to move or reside. The recognition of Roma in European societies thus oscillates between concepts of strangers occupying the bottom of the heap asking for equality and foreigners relegated to the outside asking for hospitality.