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The current EU Roma Framework runs out this year – but despite almost a decade of policy activity, not much improvement has materialised. A new Framework is in the making – and only actively listening to Roma people could give a chance to make it better this time. The very existence...
There is an EU Roma policy, but it’s intended beneficiary – Europe’s Roma minority – is hardly definable. Decades of publications by the Council of Europe and the European Union mainly show conceptual dithering, the various national terminologies don’t make things clearer and many groups’ own conceptions of ethnicity add...
The EU’s direct involvement with policy specifically directed towards Roma was a response to change political conditions arising from eastward enlargement. The postcommunist transition had a devastating effect on Roma communities in Central and South Eastern Europe, wiping out the gains of two decades of integration policies, producing high levels...
The EU at risk of becoming the stepmother country of an orphan people. By imagining Roma as a distinct and coherent transnational ethnic minority and policy object, the EU’s Roma policy feeds the ethno-nationalist idea that they do not belong to the state’s nation. It’s a wedge driven between Roma...
The murder of George Floyd has prompted Europe to question its own racism, even if it does not always seem that easy. Racism needs to be understood as an ideology that puts one human group over one or more other groups, with abusive behaviour as a logical consequence. But it...
The murder of George Floyd has propelled the largest sustained protest movement in the history of the United States. It was the final straw in bringing about widespread, focused, and multiracial opposition after years and years of endemic police brutality, systemic racism, and divisive politics. The sheer scale of it,...
Europeans need to fight two viruses, simultaneously and equally vehemently: the new coronavirus, a biological virus attacking our bodies, and the political virus which is attacking our fundamental rights and our democracies. The diverging responses to the COVID-19 crisis by the governments of different EU countries powerfully highlight how authoritarianism rhymes...
Even though the intentions from the EU Commission for a European Minimum Wageare noble and well-intentioned, the consequences for the Nordic labour market models can be far-reaching. Based on past experiences, the opposition is therefore well-founded. I am the proud owner of an old Swedish sailboat with an equally old Swedish...
A few months ago, the new European Commission boldly announced its plans to deliver an EU minimum wage legal measure within its first 100 days in office. The COVID-19 crisis is likely to affect not only the schedule of this high-profile initiative, but the very political appetite for it. Yet,...
The EU’s new gender strategy finally puts care work more solidly at the centre of our economic activity. ‘At a snail’s pace.’ That was the conclusion of the latest Gender Equality Index, which measures and compares the progress on gender equality in the European Union. The pay gap still stands at...