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Roma advocacy and EU conditionality: Not one without the other?

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Comparative European Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

This article brings together the literature on European Union conditionality and transnational NGO advocacy by considering the fundamental role non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have played in the EU's efforts to bring about reforms in countries working to join the organization. Based in part on interviews in Romania, the Czech Republic and Brussels, and focusing on the case of anti-discrimination and the Roma (Gypsies), I consider both how the EU helped NGOs achieve their objectives and how NGOs influenced the creation and effect of EU requirements on candidate countries from Central and Eastern Europe (now new Member States). While problems for the Roma have certainly not disappeared, one cannot fully appreciate the development of either advocacy or conditionality regarding the Roma without considering the mutual dependence of NGOs and the EU. The NGO role is frequently disregarded in the top-down EU accession process, but I find that neither NGOs nor the EU would have been successful at advancing or sustaining domestic change on their own.

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Notes

  1. The candidate countries referred to here are the 10 countries from Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union that joined the EU in 2004 (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and 2007 (Bulgaria and Romania).

  2. In addition to an exhaustive survey of non-governmental organization (NGO) and EU documents, data used in this study come from over 40 interviews I conducted in the Czech Republic, Romania and Brussels in 2002, 2004 and 2007.

  3. Studying the impact of the EU on democratization in Turkey, Kubicek (2005) draws similar conclusions regarding the role of civil society. While he believes that NGOs were not irrelevant, he concludes that they were not consequential in the adoption of domestic reforms.

  4. While not focusing on EU conditionality, McMahon (2005, p. 17) also notes the importance of considering the ‘synergy’ among various intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations working ‘to influence governments from above and below’. In a previous article (Ram, 2003, p. 39), I also noted that ‘domestic and international NGOs, minority parties, and kin states have retransmitted or “refracted” EU norms and demands, often using EU membership conditions and European norms and treaties as powerful tools in getting their interests addressed’.

  5. The related social movements literature has considered the EU as a target of protest (see, for example, Tarrow, 2001), but as Gupta (2008, p. 77) notes, it does not often consider the EU as a potential facilitator and support to movements. Gupta is one exception, as she explores how the EU affects the relationship between nationalist movements and states, using the European Free Alliance as a case study. Vermeersch (2007, p. 500, 2006, p. 212) considers the EU influence on the activism of the Ukrainian minority in Poland and the Romani minority in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary and concludes that the EU had little if any impact on minority mobilization. He notes that in the case of the Roma, however, it is difficult to determine whether criticism of domestic policies by IGOs empowered international advocacy NGOs.

  6. Cortell and Davis (1996, p. 452) find two factors of central importance in determining to what extent an international norm will affect state behavior: the norm's ‘domestic salience’ or legitimacy and ‘the domestic structural context within which the policy debate transpires’. From a different perspective, Risse-Kappen (1995, pp. 6–7) investigates under what circumstances transnational coalitions and actors are able to influence domestic policies and argues that it depends on the domestic structures of the state (state or society dominating) and international institutionalization (how much the issue is regulated on the international level).

  7. Many NGOs advocating for the Roma cannot be correctly characterized as ‘Roma’ organizations as they have few Roma staff or leadership. They are labeled here as ‘pro-Roma organizations’.

  8. Some of these inputs are similar to those found by Gupta (2008, p. 63) in her study of EU member states and how the EU affected ‘the relationship between [nationalist] movements and states that remain the immediate targets of protest’.

  9. Long-time Romanian Roma activist, Nicolae Gheorghe, blames EU, OSI and Council of Europe funding of Roma NGOs in part for drawing Roma into NGOs rather than public administration. Nonetheless, he acknowledges that Roma have also benefited from the experience, and has credited his own ‘NGO training’ as ‘crucial’ in preparing him for his leadership position on the Roma in the OSCE (ERRC, 2001).

  10. Interview with Karel Novak, Director, Social Integration Programs, People in Need Foundation, Prague, Czech Republic, 12 July 2007.

  11. Interview with Pascale Charhon, Director, European Network Against Racism (ENAR), Brussels, Belgium, 24 July 2007.

  12. Eight of the 10 candidate countries from Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union designed Roma programs. Estonia and Latvia instead developed ‘integration’ strategies focused on Russian-speaking minorities.

  13. Interview with Florin Moisa, Executive President, Resource Center for Roma Communities (RCRC), Cluj, Romania, 15 June 2004.

  14. The establishment of such institutions does not necessarily suggest that they are influential. Some governments have been criticized for giving some of their Roma advisory bodies little authority or resources.

  15. For example, it influenced the creation of a Subcommittee for Roma Issues in the Czech Republic, which led to a decision to reserve part of the European Social Fund (ESF) specifically for grants to Roma projects. (Interview with Petra Francová, Head of EU Section, Civil Society Development Foundation (NROS), Prague, Czech Republic, 11 July 2007).

  16. Interview with Nadia Constantini, Policy Advisor (Human Rights and Minority Issues), Delegation of the European Commission, Prague, Czech Republic, 17 December 2002.

  17. Interview with Pavel Bilek (Deputy Director) and Petra Žrivalová, Czech Helsinki Committee, Prague, Czech Republic, 13 December 2002.

  18. Andre Wilkens comments at conference of High Level Advisory Group on ‘Social and Labour Market Integration of Ethnic Minorities in the European Union: Challenges and Prospects’, Brussels 3–4 December 2007.

  19. Knowledge about the situation of the Roma in Europe has significantly grown in recent years, thanks to numerous studies and reports by NGOs and others. There remain critical data gaps, however, especially as there is little data collected that is disaggregated by ethnicity.

  20. Interview with Nadia Constantini, 17 December 2002.

  21. The People in Need Foundation, for example, is the NGO that serves as National Focal Point in the Czech Republic.

  22. For example, the July 2007 European Anti-Discrimination Law Review lists Pavla Boucková (Director of a Czech NGO) as the Czech Republic's country's expert and Lilla Farkas of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee as the Legal Expert on Roma Issues.

  23. Interview with Joachim Ott, Secretary of the High Level Advisory Group on Social Integration of Ethnic Minorities, European Commission, Anti-Discrimination Unit, Brussels, Belgium, 19 July 2007.

  24. Interview, Brussels, 24 July 2007.

  25. Interview with Ann Isabelle von Lingen, Policy Officer, Open Society Institute, Brussels, Belgium, 17 July 2007.

  26. Interview, Brussels, 19 July 2007.

  27. Interview with Gabriel Andreescu, APADOR-CH (Association for the Protection of Human Rights in Romania – Helsinki Committee), Bucharest, Romania, 1 June 2004.

  28. Interview with Costel Bercuş, Executive Director, Romani CRISS, Bucharest, Romania, 31 May 2004.

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Acknowledgements

I thank California State University, Fresno; the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX); and the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at The George Washington University for their financial support for my field research. I am also grateful to the many individuals who agreed to be interviewed for this research. Versions of this article were presented at the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) World Convention, Columbia University, NY (April 2009) and the Kolleg-Forschergruppe conference on ‘The Transformative Power of Europe’, Freie Universität Berlin (December 2009). Some of these ideas were originally explored in a paper presented at the Western Political Science Association Annual Meeting (March 2008).

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  1. Department of Political Science, California State University, Fresno, 2225 East San Ramon, MS/MF19, Fresno, 93740-8029, California, USA

    Melanie H Ram

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Ram, M. Roma advocacy and EU conditionality: Not one without the other?. Comp Eur Polit 9, 217–241 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2009.17

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