E.M.E.R.G.E. - European Mobility Enabling to Reduce th Ground of Exclusion - European Project hosted by Istituto Sturzo in partnership with ESA and FCASEC

Social inclusion beyond the European Year 2010

Society and poeple with disabilities: future challenges for the EU

giovedì, May 26th, 2011

The fight against poverty and exclusion is still a key challenge for EU. The Member States are committed to reinforcing the institutional mechanism adopting an integrated system, considering themes on social inclusion in national-level policies.

Promoting inclusion means to work in order to assure equal treatment between persons irrespective of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation and to guarantee unquestionable dignity and participation opportunities to all. All the citizens should not be left apart in the personal life and work but actively involved in their community and in the European context.

It also means to act with the aim of making the society truly inclusive and capable of adapting to correspond to the citizens’ concrete rights.

Even if there is an intrinsic solidarity which fully acknowledges the need of adaptations for people with mild disabilities in European societies, people with severe or multiple disabilities need more help in terms of human rights and inclusion. Many disabled people continue to suffer discrimination with regard to the lack of equal recognition before the law and justice. Member States have to remedy these deficiencies including electoral rights.

Compared to the average, people with disabilities have more chance of being poor; around 80 million people with disabilities are poor, including one million deaf people.

In line with what emerged during the European Year for Combating Poverty and social, we need to consider that it is impossible to reduce poverty without integrating people with disabilities in the labor market and to adjust policies supporting incomes in case of disability.

The current systems of education and training do not prevent the dropout among people with disabilities. Its high rate leads to greater social disadvantage and employment especially in this time of economic crisis.

Succeeding in the workplace is still very difficult for people with disabilities, but there are good examples that could show the possibility of a change involving all the EU countries in implementing non-discriminatory and inclusive policies.

An example of this success is the experience of Hungarian Ádám Kósa EPP deputy who oversaw the report on "European strategy on disability 2010-2020. 

An example of this success is the experience of Ádám Kósa, MEP of  PPE, author of the report on EU’s disability strategy 2010-2020.

An interesting interview with Ádám Kósa on problems that disabled people face is published on the European Parliament website here.

European Union between defense of the Treaties and electoral consensus

From 2010 Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion to 2014 Year of European elections

giovedì, March 31st, 2011

The full text of the E.M.E.R.G.E. publication can be read here:

European Union between defense of the Treaties and electoral consensus

The E.M.E.R.G.E. publication

The transnational research staff at work

lunedì, March 21st, 2011

The E.M.E.R.G.E. partnership has realized the volume European Union between defense of the Treaties and electoral consensus. From 2010 Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion to 2014 Year of European elections, co-financed by the European Union under the "Europe for the Citizens" Programme.

The publication gathers the results achieved by the trans-national staff of Italian, Bulgarian and Romanian researchers. It focuses on the activities held by the European Parliament and other EU institutions in relation to the main social problems in Italy, Bulgaria and Romania and the role of European parties through the study of the campaigns promoted on the occasion of the European elections.

This publication enables to deepen the new tool of democratic participation that from April 2012 will allow the citizens to directly begin the European legislative process: the "European Citizens’ Initiative".

For further information and for a copy of the book, plaese email: g.fiaccarini@sturzo.it.

Copertina

News on ECI

More details about the new European tool of democracy

mercoledì, March 16th, 2011

The Regulation of the "European Citizens’ Initiative" was approved on February 16th and published on March 11th 2011.

It can be read and downloaded here:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:065:0001:0022:EN:PDF

COUNCIL OF EUROPE SLAMS ITALY’S TREATMENT OF ROMA

giovedì, December 2nd, 2010

The Council of Europe, based in Strasbourg (France), now covers virtually the entire European continent, with 47 member countries. Founded on 5 May 1949 by 10 countries, the Council of Europe seeks to develop throughout Europe common and democratic principles based on the European Convention on Human Rights and other reference texts on the protection of individuals. Even if not belonging to the European Union, it is often mistaken for one of its bodies.

Recently, the Council of Europe’s European Committee of Social Rights found Italy to have violated the rights of its Roma population. The Committee found Italy in violation of the prohibition on discrimination and violations of the rights of Roma people to adequate housing; social, legal and economic protection; protection against poverty and social exclusion; and the right of migrant Roma families to protection and assistance. The Committee said that Roma camps have been destroyed and their inhabitants illegally evicted and expelled from Italy, often without notice and without the option of alternative housing. Many camps in various regions throughout Italy have also been the target of arson or vandalism based on racial hatred. The perpetrators of these crimes are rarely prosecuted or even investigated by local authorities.

The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe announced the ruling in the case brought against Italy by the Geneva-based international human rights organization the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) and the Italian organization OsservAzione. The organizations accused Italy of violations of the Revised European Social Charter. The ground-breaking decision in COHRE v. Italy finds Italy guilty of policies and practices that have left Roma residents living in segregated and grossly inadequate housing conditions. The mass expulsion of non-Italian Roma who are citizens of other EU countries has increased dramatically in Italy since following the formation of a new national government in 2008.

Roma settlement in Torino, Italy (2008 © COHRE)

This decision will reverberate throughout Europe, as it establishes new jurisprudence confirming that the mass expulsion of migrants is a violation of the Revised European Social Charter,” said Bret Thiele, COHRE’s Senior Expert for Litigation and Legal Advocacy. “This is very relevant to the current situation of Roma in France, and the French government needs to take serious note of this as the recent evictions and deportations of Roma in France place the government in violation of the European Social Charter too.”

The Italian delegation to the meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council reacted to the ruling, pledging to the Committee to “ensure the effective implementation of the rights deriving from the Revised European Social Charter for every individual, including for persons belonging to the Roma communities.” Salih Booker, COHRE’s Executive Director, said that “COHRE and its Italy-based partner, OsservAzione, will continue to monitor the housing rights situation of Roma in Italy to ensure that the Italian authorities live up to this commitment.”

France and Italy seem to be countries “under surveillance” in this period. A delegation of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) visited Italy from 21 to 26 November 2010 as the first step in the preparation of a monitoring report. During its visit, ECRI’s delegation gathered information on the implementation of the recommendations it made to the authorities in its previous report of 2006 and discussed new issues that had emerged since. The delegation held meetings in Rome, Venice, Padua and Naples with representatives of all relevant ministries, public officials, human rights NGOs and minority groups. Following this visit, ECRI will adopt a report in which it will make a fresh set of recommendations on measures to be taken by the authorities to address racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance in the country. Among these, three will be revisited two years after the publication of the report as part of an interim follow-up procedure.

In the meanwhile the European Parliament – the elective institution of the European Union with a much higher level of political representation than the Council of Europe – is expressing a very similar position. The hearing by the Civil Liberties Committee on 30 November – 1 December brought together all those involved and affected by the EU's "Strategy on Roma inclusion". Hungarian MEP Lívia Járóka has just drafted a report on the strategy and the issues involved. It formed a basis for much of the debate. France and Italy were criticised by Lívia Járóka herself and civil society organisations for their treatment of the Roma. Ms Marilisa Fantacci from French organisation "Collectif des Roms en Europe" reported that nothing had changed since the summer and Roma are still being expelled from France. "We wonder how in these conditions France can develop an inclusion strategy" she asked.

The European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion is going to be concluded but the strategy on Roma inclusion will remain in the European political agenda.

Sources:

COHRE

Council of Europe

European Parliament

Citizens initiative, a challenge to change social Europe

New participatory instruments to ask for new European law. Citizens, stakeholders, Ngo's and political parties will be able to use another tool to stand up their voice inside the EU institutions

mercoledì, November 17th, 2010

"Freedom is involvement" Italian folk-singer Giorgio Gaber used to sing. Involvement could also mean freedom and wish to play an active role within the public European sphere thanks a new participatory democracy tool. Our vote to the European Elections won't be anymore the exclusive way to participate to the European institutions’ life. The Lisbon Treaty (article 11 TEU and article 24 TFEU) introduces a new form of public involvement in European Union, the so called "European citizens initiative". This tool enables at least one million citizens who are nationals of a still undetermined number of Member States to call directly on the European Commission to bring forward an initiative of interest to them in an area of EU competence. The right to petition to the European Parliament differs substantially to the new "initiative". European citizens will be able to sign a political document to urge European Commission to prepare a law proposal.
It is now necessary to wait that European Institutions will define the operational aspects of this new instrument. Considered the importance of this new tool for citizens, civil society and stakeholders, the Commission carried out a broad public consultation on the basis of a green paper in order to seek the opinions of all interested parties on how the citizens' initiative should work in practice. The Commission adopted a proposal on March. This is the basis to begin negotiations with the European Parliament and the Council. The goal is the adoption of a specific Regulation. The effectiveness will also depend on the answers of this Regulation to various points that are still object of negotiations: minimum number of EU countries, minimum number of signatories per country, minimum age of signatories, form and wording, rules on collecting, verifying and authenticating, time limit for collecting, rules on transparency and a possible time limit for Commission response. The citizens initiative system should become operational during the first six months of 2011.

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Roma people repatriations seen from Bucharest

Towards the social inclusion of Roma people

domenica, October 17th, 2010

"Roma, Gypsies … It is extremely important. I have come to realize that, politically speaking, Romania has made a terrible mistake when it changed the name of this minority from Gypsies into Roma. No one is intentionally supporting the confusion. It was our political decision, but the confusion happens often and at the moment, many of the European citizens are confused whether Roma means all the Romanian people, that is 22 million or just one ethnic group" Traian Basescu told for RRA (Romanian Radio Broadcasting ).
"They have this culture to travel from one place to another. In order to take decisions of financial support of nomads’ integration process, politicians must not be contested by their own folk. It is different when French, Germans, British politicians stated: we have to integrate half a million nomad Gypsies and another where the taxpayer says that we must integrate 22 million Romanians. We are speaking here of an ethnic group and Romania is supporting this group. We cannot condone the French government’s decision,” the head of state added.
“Without deviating from the obligations that Romania has for its citizens, there is a shared European responsibility to resolve the Roma problems” stated Emil Boc in the discussion he had last week with the French Minister for Immigration, Integration and National Identity, Eric Besson and the Secretary of State for European Affairs, Pierre Lellouche.

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Free movement of workers or increase of social exclusion?

The case of Romanian care workers living in Italy

giovedì, October 7th, 2010

Dora is a Romanian care worker who has a sad story to tell. Thanks to the web archive www.storiemigranti.org we can listen to her voice. When she decided to emigrate to Italy in order to find a job, the help of a cousin was necessary for the placement to be organised. Dora was put in contact with a Sardinian family needing assistance for a very old “grandfather” and then started a regular job as a care worker. When the cousin requested money for the “service”, Dora was happy to have the chance to thank him for such a great opportunity. Unfortunately, these requests did not stop and Dora discovered to be exploited – with violence – by a member of her family. Furthermore, when she started to have a social life and to go out, always in the restricted periods of free time given to a care worker, something new happened. She was accused by her employer to attend the night clubs, “as the Romanian women regularly do”. This was not true. Her short Italian adventure had come to an unpredictable and dramatic end. Dora experienced social exclusions at two levels. At family level, she was exploited as a woman – a hard worker easy to sell and to rob. At social level, she was offended as a member of a national community with a negative reputation in the Italian society. Furthermore, a second victim of social exclusion should be mentioned. The old “grandfather” was suddenly deprived of a person having assisted him with respect and care.

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The Western Balkans European prospects:

has the Sarajevo conference pushed forward a “new deal” between EU and Balkans?

lunedì, September 20th, 2010

The international conference held in Sarajevo on 2 June was organized by the rotating presidency of the EU, currently held by Spain, in order to solemnly reaffirm the European prospects of the Balkan countries and to present the economic and political advances they have made with a view to their future integration. The main purpose of this conference from the EU side was to reaffirm the desire to integrate the Western Balkans into the EU and will reassert the place of the region in Europe. In this region the EU has spent many efforts to achieve stabilization and modernization, both economic and political and has invested different resources, including military units, police and judges to help build security structures based on the European standards. A vast bulk of steps and passages are included in a decade-old process to bring the former Yugoslav republics closer to the EU. The conference of Sarajevo was organized ten years after the Zagreb meeting and seven years after the Thessaloniki summit.

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Europe Day celebration: EU opens the doors to european citizenship

“Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity.”

venerdì, May 7th, 2010

On 9 May 1950 Robert Schuman, french foreign affairs Minister, laid the foundations of the European Union calling for a Europe built on concrete results, starting with solidarity. A few years later, Schuman became the first president of European Parliament.
In spite of all the efforts that the European Union, its institutions and the stakeholders involved in the construction of a European identity (Member States, national regional and local authorities, political parties, NGO’s and organised civil society) have made throughout the years to involve European citizens and to stimulate «feelings» of belonging, the Europe of today cannot yet consider itself the Europe of the citizens.

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