Асоциация Интегро

Inclusive policy planning and implementation is more needed than ever for Roma integration

By Liliya Makaveeva

Executive director of Integro Association

The situation with housing issues of Roma in Bulgaria has been getting more complicated in the last few weeks. As it has become widely known lately, the mayorsof Stara Zagora,Varna, and Plovdiv havetaken steps to demolish the illegally built housesin the Roma neighbourhoodsthere.  These actions to destroy the only homesof Roma families, widely covered bymedia, apparently becomevery popular in the society and obviously encourage other mayors of big Bulgarian cities to consider the same approach to solve  the allowed by them for decadesissue of  illegally built by Roma homes.

In Stara Zagora about 300 houses in total are expected to be destroyed by the end of this year, while in the last week were demolished 55 homes.

According to the Varna’s district mayor Hristo Hristov about 400 are the illegal buildings in Maksuda neighborhood to be demolished. About 55 Roma families have already received orders for evictions but after they refused to do so voluntarily, the municipality undertook a forced demolition of their homes. According to the chief architect of Varna Municipality Victor Buzev, demolition of all illegal buildings in the Roma neighborhoods „Maksuda“ will cost about 5 million BGN.“If we talk about Gypsy buildings, between 12 and 13 000 leva will costs demolition of one such a shack,“ said the chief architect for the electronic site VarnaUtre(http://www.varna.utre.bg/2014/07/15/2434145_mln_leva_shte_struva_razchistvaneto_na_maksuda). According to him, the municipal budget can afford such a spending, which will even meet the support of the local public.

In other big city of Bulgaria – Plovdiv for the time being the municipality has demolished only illegal constructions in Stolipinovo neighborhood, which are not housing but no one knows what would be the next steps of the local authority in this regard.

The forced evictions would be avoid if the mayors take steps to communicate and consult their plans with the local Roma communities sufficiently in advance as well as if provide alternative accommodation to the families before destroying their homes. In Stara Zagora, 33 families, including children, whose home were demolished on July 21st spent the night outdoors.  Actually, it should be emphasized that the children of these families arevery likely to be considered being at risk and provided with state protection, which foresees either accommodation with relatives, foster family or accommodation in an institution. Whichever way would choose as a protective measure, the institutions would doomed these children to a very strong stress due to the removal of secure family environment in which they have been raised so far.

These measures obviously are far of policiesthat are expected to be taken by the mayors at local level in terms of implementation of the EU Framework for national Roma Integration Strategies. In the Council recommendation on effective Roma integrationmeasures in the member statesfrom December 2013 clearly was declared that local authorities should ensure theirproject applications for urban regenerationinclude integrated housing interventions in favour of marginalised communities.Moreover, the EU expectations are that the member states to elaborate in close consultation with the Roma communities and accept well thought, interrelated and coordinated national, regional and local strategies for Roma inclusion, which are strongly linked to the other national strategic documents for state development in order to secure a maximum benefit from the EU funding for the planned goals and priority measures.

It is praiseworthy that the Bulgarian government has taken consecutive steps for elaboration of the overall strategic frame for Roma policy including the National Roma Integration Strategy 2012-2020 (NRIS), regional strategies for Roma integration and municipal action plans for implementation of NRIS. Not so praiseworthy is that this planning process has taken almost 4 years (starting in 2011 and still ongoing by the end of this year) and in most cases Roma haven’t participated in it. While this long process of strategic planning was going, seems it was paid less attention to the development of other important aspects, as for instance developing strong mechanisms for implementation, monitoring and assessment of the NRIS.

It seems also that the goals, priorities and planned measures of the NRIS are less taken into consideration by the municipalities while elaborating their main development strategies – the Local Development Plans 2014-2020 (LDP) and Integrated Plans for Urban Regeneration and Development (IPURD). Quick scans into these municipal documents show that many municipalities have either forgotten to identify faced by their local Roma communities problems in the fields of housing, infrastructure and other public services or haven’t planned appropriate measures to tackle the identified needs.

That perhaps wouldn’t be a problem if there was available targeted financing for the implementation of the National Roma Integration Strategy either by the state, municipal or EU funding but the financing of the municipal action plans for the implementation of the National Roma Integration Strategy will come through the mainstream municipal programs and plans.

Thus, for tackling the housing issue of Roma, which indeed requires large investments by the municipalities, it is expected that the main part of the needed funding will come either from the Bulgarian Operational Program “Regions in growth” 2014-2020 for urban municipalities on the basis of Integrated Plans for Urban Regeneration and Development (IPURD) or from the Program for Development of Rural Areas 2014-2020 for rural municipalities on the basis of Local Development Plans.

The problem is that lots of the city municipalities, which in 2013 developed their Integrated Plans for Urban Regeneration and Development haven’t planned appropriate measures to tackle the housing issue of their local Roma communities nor involved Roma in the public consultations they were obliged to implement during the planning process. For the rural municipalities the problem is that no funding is foreseen for social housing after the last elaborated version of the Program for Development of Rural Areas 2014-2020, which means even the mayors of rural municipalities would agreed to prioritize Roma housing issue in their Local Development Plans, there will be no available funding.

Currently Bulgaria still negotiates its Partnership Agreements with the EC as well as the Operational programs under which will get the EU funding for 2014-2020 programming period. It is time for the local authorities to stop hoping that there will be a separate target funding for the implementation of their Roma integration action plans and to understand that there will be available funding from the ESIF for Roma inclusion through the Operational programs if only mainstream the Roma priorities in their Local Development Plans and Integrated Plans for Urban Regeneration and Development. It is time also the Bulgarian state to strongly address that institutions should not marginalize the planning and implementation of these policies once again, otherwise after 7 years and more all we will continue to speak again about Roma integration.