Video message delivered to the Ministerial meeting on Roma integration within the EU enlargement process, organised in the context of the Berlin Process Meetings 2024, Berlin, 18 September 2024:
Hello, and thank you so much for inviting me to this important meeting. I apologize that I can only participate by means of a recorded video.
I am particularly sorry because I appreciate how very important this gathering is. To convene at the level of ministers to discuss one of the greatest challenges on our continent: how to honour the human rights of members of the Roma community is of the highest importance.
I commend Germany for the leadership being shown in this endeavour.
Now the situation is before us of the largest ethnic minority on the continent, some 10 to 12 million people, living with very worrying human and social indicators. A context where adult Roma women, men and children typically live some ten years less than people in the general population.
A situation of pervasive racism, of antigypsyism across our continent.
There's so much to do, and we must do it in smart, joined up, highly focused ways.
There is, of course, in the first place the joining up across countries, those inside and outside the European Union. And again here, I commend this meeting in that context.
But beyond that, a few suggestions.
In the first place, it's so essential that this be a project of partnership between those of us who are not Roma and members of the Roma communities. We who are not Roma must never work for the Roma communities. We must work with them to bring about real and meaningful change.
And then the other suggestion I leave with you is that of finding out how we can do a better job of working with, empowering, giving voice to, and then listening to Roma women on the one hand, and Roma young people on the other. Increasingly, I find everywhere I go, visiting Roma communities, that it is women and young people who are the greatest vectors of change.
To conclude, I reiterate to you my pledge to pay attention to the human rights of Roma and Travellers across Council of Europe member states. I will accord it the highest of priorities, not just a once off priority, but as a sustained focus of my attention right across the years of my mandate.
I thank you and I wish you all the very best for your proceedings.