By Roland Ferkovics
Roland Ferkovics is Co-Manager and Project Officer of Roma Civil Monitor 2021-2025 at the CEU Democracy Institute.
Despite the fact that it is difficult to meaningfully address Roma inclusion without effective political representation, the representation of Roma – Europe’s largest minority – has been severely neglected across the European political space, with no Roma candidate getting elected to the European Parliament this year.
Representation rights need to be perceived as cardinal elements and indicators of the realization of democratic principles. In theory, member states of the European Union ensure ethnic minority groups’ political rights with the aim of guaranteeing equal chances and equality before the law. This applies to Europe’s largest ethnic minority, the Roma, who live scattered around the EU and have historically suffered from socio-economic marginalization, widespread racism, and political exclusion.
However, despite all the talk about Roma rights during the Decade of Roma Inclusion (2005-2015) and other, more recent efforts, such as the new EU Roma Framework and the initiatives of international organizations,
the political representation of Roma has not emerged as an issue during the latest European Parliamentary (EP) elections.
This has partly to do with the fact that the
EU has opted to treat Roma inclusion as a matter exclusively of public policy rather than as a political issue, even though it is difficult to meaningfully address Roma inclusion without effective political representation.
Countries applying for EU membership in recent decades have been obliged by EU institutions to conform to accession criteria and one of those criteria explicitly requires the respect and protection of minorities. Furthermore, the EU Roma strategic framework for equality, inclusion and participation for 2020–2030 (EURSF) and the 2021 Council Recommendation on Roma equality, inclusion and participation both demonstrated high-level commitment to the strengthening of Roma participation, including the involvement of Roma and pro-Roma civil society organizations in consultations related to the design and development of Roma-related policies. In theory, meaningful and effective participation of Roma in consultations and policy development could play a significant role in contributing to their political representation.
However, the 2022 Roma Civil Monitoring’s Synthesis Report pointed out that the most vulnerable groups of Roma – who should be the primary beneficiaries here – are rarely involved in such consultations.
In short, there are democratic European member states (MSs) that ensure group-specific rights, including political representation rights, and that have met the Copenhagen criteria of minority protection. Furthermore, the EURSF and the Council Recommendation promote Roma participation, which also amounts to a form of representation.
Nevertheless, no Roma candidate was elected to the EP in 2024. This implies that the representation of Roma has been severely neglected across the European political space.
Why has Europe’s largest minority been subjected to such political neglect at a time when the protection of basic human rights and the fulfillment of democratic principles should be more urgent than ever?
First of all, Roma rights advocates could have expressly demanded EP mandates for Roma candidates before the EP elections. However, the opportunities for that were more limited than ever. Second, European politics has been skewed against ensuring greater Roma political representation because other topics have eclipsed the Roma issue. The EU has encountered a highly challenging Union-wide issue: international migration which has preoccupied European political elites and greatly influenced the EU’s agenda. Additionally, the momentous Russo-Ukrainian war has strongly defined this year’s election. Since topics such as migration and the Russian war of aggression were prioritized while national-level political interest – which could have strengthened voices calling for better Roma representation – was largely missing, Roma found themselves in a political vacuum. Consequently, they have tried to articulate the need for inclusion without much success.
Additionally, the success of political representation of Roma does not only depend on the dynamics of the European political agenda. Several international organizations, such as the Council of Europe or the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, have developed strategic action plans and invited governments to support the participation of Roma (Roma, Sinti and Travellers) in public and political life at the local, national and European level. Dialogue mechanisms and structured platforms have been operationalized and connected the representatives of Roma communities with policy and political stakeholders. The Open Society Institute also allocated significant amounts of funds and resources to promote the political empowerment of Roma, especially on the grassroots level. While these efforts heightened the issue’s visibility, Roma political representation has been hindered by the lack of political will on the national level and the particularities of national electoral systems.
Placing Roma candidates high enough on party lists for them to get elected does not qualify as a popular political decision in EU MSs. This is especially true in a context where nationalist and radical-rightist ideas are gaining traction in most corners of the continent.
This pattern cannot be illustrated better than by the very fact that no more than four out of 27 MSs had Roma candidates on their lists.
One of those four MSs was Hungary where the newly formed conservative-liberal TISZA party placed Roma candidate Csaba Bogdán on its list. The entire methodology of setting the order of candidates on the party list is worth examining more closely because it demonstrates how the electorate of TISZA assesses the importance of Roma political representation. The party presented ten candidates to the Hungarian electorate, letting its supporters decide their ranking. Bogdán, the Roma candidate, ended up in eighth place out of ten, which clearly shows that TISZA’s core electorate did not consider the presence of a Roma candidate in the EP as a pivotal matter.
Unfortunately, the party ended up gaining only seven mandates. Although party leader Péter Magyar (who was in the first place on the list) initially maintained that he would not take up his seat in the EP, after the elections – and with the backing of his supporters – he nonetheless decided to do so. This leaves Hungary without a Roma MEP after the departure of FIDESZ MEP Lívia Járóka (who resumed her academic career).
It is concerning that the EP and the European Roma have remained without a single Roma representative. EU MSs and national political parties need to understand that delegating Roma MEPs is not only in the interest of the Roma. Roma are constituent parts of European societies. Thus, their representation must also be in the interest of societies at large.
When it comes to the political representation of the largest minority in Europe, significantly more political effort will need to be exerted to at least approach proportionality.
