Recommendations

Xenophobic attitudes are becoming increasingly popular in Romania, and Romanians themselves are fully aware of it, judging by the results of opinion polls. Currently, along with a demonstration of commitment by the authorities to improve the situation of minorities in the local and regional level, we are seeing trends towards discrimination against Roma, Hungarians and non-Orthodox religious communities, as well as the facts of the glorification of the pro-Nazi regime of Ion Antonescu.

In the Romanian society, anti-Roma, anti-Hungarian and anti-Semitic sentiments are fairly common. On their part, minorities are gradually “voting with their feet” - we can note the mass departure of Roma and Hungarians abroad. Hungarian minority is becoming increasingly radicalised themselves, sympathising with the Hungarian right-wing Jobbik party. Their desire to achieve autonomy from Romania indicates their dissatisfaction with the state’s attitude towards them.

1. General recommendations for the accession to international agreements and conventions.

As a country providing migrants to the European labour market, it is recommended for Romania to join the International Convention for migrants and their families. In addition, Romania was the actual connection to the annual UN General Assembly resolution directed against the glorification of Nazism.

2. General recommendations for adjustments to the legal framework.

At present, there is no single law in Romania on the status and rights of national minorities, in which there is an urgent need. Additionally Romania needs to amend the immigration laws that would allow immigrants to obtain citizenship for their children born in Romania. An important point is the introduction of amendments to the Constitution of the regional status of the Hungarian language. In addition, it is necessary to cancel the rules of social assistance, which allow one to leave without the support of the vast majority of the Roma people. It is desirable to adopt a law (or a set of laws) protecting the rights of the Roma from the unexpected eviction without compensation.

3. General recommendations for the executive bodies in the field of enforcement of law and human rights.

Romania's should make efforts to break the negative trends in the Romanian society associated with the development of xenophobia and intolerance. To do this, it must take a number of steps:

• establish a national system of registration of incidents and hate crimes;
• make clear statistics of these accidents, including the percentage of solved cases;
• implement a registration system for persons who identify themselves as ethnic minorities, who have expressed an interest in the protection of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for the protection of regional languages and minority languages;
• stop discriminatory practices against the Roma minority in the field of education, which requires the Department of Education to find ways for distribution of Roma children in public schools in Romania with the help of departmental vehicles;
• prevent segregation of Roma in this area;
• continue to implement the positive experience of the use of school mediators;
• revise school textbooks to eliminate xenophobic attitudes towards religious minorities;
• eliminate discriminatory practices against ethnic minorities in employment and for that to study the case of the so-called “positive discrimination” which is used in a number of EU countries;
• eliminate discriminatory practices against ethnic minorities in the healthcare sector. This requires to develop the services of intermediaries to provide medical services in an environment of Roma and to develop an appropriate vaccination program;
• ensure the participation of members of national minorities in the work of the government at the local level;
• actively enforce criminal laws against those who violate the anti-racist, anti-discrimination and anti-extremist norms.

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