CVEK

Partners:

European Centre for Minority Issues, Germany

The Institute for European Studies, Estonia

The Research Institute for Labour and Social Affairs, Czech Republic

The Baltic Institute of Social Sciences, Latvia

The Institute for Ethnic Studies, Slovenia

The Institute of Sociology, University of Lund, Sweden

The National Action Plans (NAPs) implemented by European Union member states through the Open Method of Co-operation (OMC) do not have a noticeable representation of the aspect of culture in promoting social inclusion.  Even though culture was introduced in several NAPs in terms of cultural activities and access to culture, there is a need to point out how these policies can enhance the social inclusion of ethnic minorities.

The project “Aspects of Culture in the Social Inclusion of Ethnic Minorities” looked to review the cultural policies introduced in the NAPs of six Member States of the European Union, namely Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Sweden. The main task has been to analyze their impact on the promotion of the social exclusion of ethnic minorities, including Roma/Sinti groups together with piloting a set of Common Inter – Cultural Indicators (CICIs) possible for cost-effectiveness analyses and benchmarking within the EU.

Important findings of the analysis has been:

1. Social inclusion policies are uneffective in general as far as Roma are concerned.  

2. Inter-ethnic relations toward Roma matters more than any integration policy.

3. Integration policies toward Roma are being in place more because of existence of a pressure from outside the country than due to interest of officials or public.

4. The most important question remains whether Roma in Slovakia have where to integrate without full assimilation.

5. Not only cost-effectiveness analysis is not possible, but we do not know „costs“. Cost-effectiveness has no been done so far in Slovakia, institutions tend to gather all possible types of data without ambitions to assess their impact.

6. The only sphere where we can identify „costs“ on marginaliyed minorities is the sphere of support culture activities.

Activities of the CVEK within the project:  

1. The research team of the CVEK started its activities on the project at the beginning of March 2006 according to guidelines from the first preliminary workshop in Flensburg at the end of February 2006. The workshop raised a number of problems reflecting the complexity of the subject and Slovak representatives agreed on the necessity to consecrate part of the report to a general definition of culture to give the opportunity to consequently define social inclusion and how to measure it. The most crucial issue was the debate on the definition of a working framework of cultural indicators. The Slovak team followed a decision to stack out as three preliminary indicators the issues of Education, Media and Participation.
2. Firstly, the Slovak research team started to elaborate a description of the situation of minorities, including their current and historical situation, and particularly their legal situation.
3. Secondly, the research team worked during March 2006 on collection and analysis of the all materials mentioning in any way national minorities and particularly Roma in Slovakia. Slovak NAP on social inclusion has been analysed deeply in order to be prepare focus groups with experts on social inclusion from Slovakia.
4. At the beginning of April 2006 the research team started its to prepare the Focus Group session on NAP on Social Inclusion in Slovakia that took place in Štúrovo, April 14, 2006, with experts from NGOs, academic institutions, and state administration. The focus group has been leaded by Dr. Michal Vašečka and it took 3 hours. The primary goal of the focus group has been to discuss 5 issues:
a. Goals that government of Slovakia wants to achieve by particular arrangements;
b. Evaluate the complexity and multidimensionality of the NAP on social inclusion;
c. Evaluate the focus on segregated Roma as the most vulnerable minority;
d. Evaluate the understanding of the term culture;
e. Discuss both positive and negative outcomes of support for cultural activities of the minority.
Group of experts agreed that National Action Plan on Social Inclusion is not focused primarily on Roma communities and as a whole is insufficient and one-dimensional. They reached the agreement that more usable, although also very limited material, is National Action Plan of the Slovak Republic Regarding the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005 – 2015, that has been approved by the government of Slovakia. This document approaches issues of social inclusion in more complex way, although it is worth to note that this document has been initiated from outside of Slovakia – by the World bank and Open Society Institute . 
5. The research team afterwards analyzed the focus group results. The Slovak NAP on social inclusion has been identified by the group of experts as one-dimensional, focused primarily on economic dimension of the problem. Experts in the course of discussion defined also other social exclusion mechanisms. According to them, the social exclusion concept is more complex and broad in the first line. The advantage of using more complex approach is the fact that social exclusion is not being reduced to the most frequently used monetary (insufficient income) or consumption dimension (insufficient consumption). It means shift of emphasis from the financial handicap to its multidimensional character, i.e. identifying the different consequences caused by social exclusion. Group of experts identified as one of the greatest challenges a fact that NAP on social inclusion cannot be complex in relation to a Roma population because of inability to identify target group. Problems with statistics arise from the incongruity between data on ethnicity (gathered before 1989 on the basis of people’s anthropological characteristic, affinity towards a certain type of settlement, and even an evaluation of preferred lifestyle) and data on nationality (gathered on the basis of self-declaration in population censuses after 1989). Throughout the transformation period, statistics on the number of Roma has originated from three sources, all of which are inaccurate and potentially misleading. The group of experts identified as the most visible problem of a NAP lack of focus on segregated Roma communities that may be deemed to be those which live in separated or segregated settlements. The last statistics on Roma settlements were collected during the former communist regime and date back to the end of 1988 when there were 278 settlements in Slovakia, from this number 230 were located in the then designated Eastern Slovak Region. The most striking for the group of experts has been a fact of missing bridge between cultural policies and social inclusion. Factor of culture is understood in a very narrow sense of supporting Roma culture in the same way as a culture of other national minorities is being supported. Usually therefore, different folklore groups are being supported what only confirm prejudices and stereotypes of Roma. What is completely missing in the NAP on social inclusion is a support for culture in a sense of increasing participation. A support for cultural activities is a very important for the social cohesion of the society and increase of the dignity of socially excluded persons.

6. The research team as the next step of the research analyzed different inclusion policies of the Slovak republic in the spheres of Education, Employment, Inter-cultural dialogue, and Media.
7. The research team decided to discuss preliminary results during the so-called pre-dissemination meeting with some of representatives of the state administration in Bratislava. The seminar took place on July 7, 2006 and it took 3 hours. Governmental plenipotentiary raised several questions and doubts concerning the project and she evaluated the project as an extremely ambitious.     
8. The results of the first phase of the project were presented during the 2nd working seminar in Flensburg on July 13 -14, 2006.    

9. After the 2nd working seminar in Flensburg new important dimension of the project has been highlighted – to assess cost effectiveness of the programs and projects oriented on Roma in Slovakia. These data, however, do not exist, in fact, they should not be gathered at any stage according to the Constitution of the Slovak republic. Therefore, Slovak team decided to continue the research according to two lines – terrain gathering data in 5 primary schools in Eastern Slovakia in May 2006 and gathering of opinion of broadly defined experts on social inclusion matters on indicators and possibilities of cost-effectiveness analysis by using a questionnaire (August 2006).
10. During September 2006 Slovak research team analyzed results of the questionnaire and junior assistants were searching for all possible data that would enable the research team to conduct cost effectiveness analysis. The search has no been particularly successful, therefore a research team included into the final report only selected data that describes to certain extent the scope of the problem.  
11. On October 6, 2006 Slovak research team organized a dissemination seminar summarizing the whole project. Dissemination seminar took place in Bratislava with a participation of 26 participants both from NGOs and governmental bodies. A seminar brought extremely fruitful discussion about chances to assess cost-effectiveness of any programs and projects concerning Roma and national minorities in general.

12. The results of the second phase of the project were presented during the 3rd working seminar in Flensburg on October 15 -16, 2006.