ZAGREB, June 14, 2019 – After Thursday’s meeting between Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, MP Veljko Kajtazi and a delegation of the Kali Sara Roma association, Minister of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Crafts Darko Horvat said that the Roma ethnic minority cannot be integrated without the participation of local and regional government and that they were not meeting all their obligations.
Integrating the Roma ethnic minority into normal co-existence without local and regional government representatives simply will not occur, Horvat said after the meeting in the government attended by ministers and state secretaries.
Strategic documents and action plans clearly highlight who is responsible for which tasks and what rights and obligations belong to whom, but it was concluded that part of the obligations that local governments have taken upon themselves are not being fulfilled nor implemented at the set pace, Horvat said.
He said that during the meeting the government presented what it was doing in an effort to integrate the Roma ethnic minority as transparently and quickly as possible, and also to what measure local government was participating in that.
It was concluded that the operational programme for national minorities is being implemented as planned and that each year participation from the state budget to resolve the problems of the Roma community and other ethnic minorities has increased. The Roma community is being integrated more and more in processes into the local community and into the implementation of the operational programme at the national level, he said.
MP Veljko Kajtazi said that he received full support from the prime minister and that he advised him that local and regional governments that have adopted their action plans for the Roma minority do not have sufficient funds to implement those plans.
Kajtazi said that they had asked that the operational programme for their minority be strengthened, particularly with regard to education, housing, and the work of the committee overseeing the National Strategy.
He added that he expects 70% to 80% of the operational programme to have been implemented by 2020.
More news about the Roma can be found in the Lifestyle section.
