Kosovo Tackles Discrimination

Brussels - Valon Murtezaj, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kosovo, participated in the works for the launch of the project ‘National responsibility and European support within the Roma Integration Initiative 2020’.

On this occasion, Deputy Minister Murtezaj spoke on the engagement of the institutions of the Republic of Kosovo to include all communities into the European society. Moreover, he reiterated Kosovo’s commitment toward the path of integration in the European family, and the overall efforts for the integration of all communities. He finally stated that “Kosovo is a country of inclusion of all communities, and not a country of discrimination”.

This activity is organized by the European Union, the Regional Cooperation Council and the Open Society Foundation. EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn, philanthropist George Soros and ministers from the countries of the region are also attending this activity.

In 2011 the European Commission already adopted an EU Framework for “National Roma Integration Strategies”, mainly focusing on four key areas: education, employment, healthcare and housing.
In the framework, all Member States have been invited to present to the European Commission their strategies for the Roma inclusion or for Roma’s specific policy measures within their wider social inclusion policies. In fact, the main responsibility as well as the competences to improve the situation of all marginalized people, including the Roma, rest with the Member States. Thus, national contact points have been set up in each country for Roma integration strategies.

In 2012, once assessed these national strategies, the European Commission published its conclusions in a Communication, the ‘National Roma Integration Strategies: a first step in the implementation of the EU Framework’: the assessment looked at the main key areas of education, employment, healthcare and housing, and in what ways the strategies envisaged setting up the structural requirements.