National Minorities Office seeking to strengthen Roma community coordination

The proposed amendments to the Roma Community Act, which will be open for remarks until 22 April, seek to address the main shortcomings of the current law, which was adopted in 2007 and has not been amended or supplemented since, the office said.

A key new feature are municipal coordinators, which are meant to serve as a link between local communities and the national level, improving communication, and facilitating the exchange of views and best practices. This measure would be implemented in municipalities with registered Roma settlements - currently, 25 municipalities.

The municipal coordinators would be organised into a council of coordinators, headed by the national authority responsible for national minorities. To ensure that municipal budgets are not burdened, the coordinators would be funded from the national budget.

As noted in the explanatory memorandum, the current Roma Community Council does not achieve the objectives and intentions laid out as the existing law was adopted.

Also proposed is a revised composition and status for the Roma Community Council. Under the current law, the council consists of 21 members - 14 representing the Union of Roma in Slovenia and seven representing Roma communities in local self-government councils. Under the new proposal, the council would comprise all elected representatives of the Roma community in local self-government councils.

The council would be reconstituted within three months following each round of regular municipal elections. Its president would be elected from among the members by secret ballot with a two-thirds majority. Furthermore, the seat of the council would be moved from Murska Sobota to Ljubljana.

The aim of the proposed changes is to "ensure political representation, thereby providing a more legitimate, democratic and higher quality functioning of the Roma Community Council".

According to the majority of Roma community organisations and the human rights ombudsman, the current composition unjustly marginalises and discriminates against segments of the Roma community, local Roma communities and civil rights organisations representing the Roma community in terms of participation in the council.

Additionally, the changes would establish a new legal basis for the co-financing of associations, unions of Roma community associations, their media and other programmes and projects in the fields of education, culture, social affairs, housing, health, information, publishing and other activities important for improving the status of the Roma community.

While under the current system public calls are managed by the Roma Community Council based on an annual contract with the national authority responsible for national minorities, this competence would now be transferred to the national authority.

As a fourth objective, the proposer highlights the need to improve the housing conditions of the Roma community. The proposal envisages amendments to Articles 121 and 123 of the Spatial Planning Act, in cases where the municipal spatial plan process is initiated solely for registered Roma settlements.

The bodies responsible for spatial planning and the ministry in charge of comprehensive environmental impact assessments would be required, when preparing a municipal spatial plan that relates exclusively to registered Roma settlements, to submit documents, information and opinions within 30 days of receiving a request.

The annual cost for implementing the proposed new provisions is estimated at EUR 1.14 million.