Human resources minister evaluates national Roma integration programmes

Budapest, July 8 (MTI) – Indicators show that the living conditions of Hungary’s Roma have improved in almost all areas over the past two years, Human Resources Minister Zoltán Balog said at the opening of an international conference in Budapest on Friday.

The two-day conference has been organised to mark the fifth anniversary of the launch of Hungary’s national strategy on the Roma’s social inclusion and the EU’s framework strategy on Roma integration.

Today almost 84 percent of Roma face the risk of slipping into poverty or social exclusion compared with almost 90 percent in 2014, Balog noted. The proportion of Roma living in poverty measured in terms of relative income has dropped by 5 percent over the past two years, he added.

One positive change is the government’s insistence that Roma should be regarded “neither as victims nor criminals”, he said.

Fully 50,000 Roma families have government fostered jobs and 750 Roma women have found permanent employment in social care in state-run institutions, he said.

Balog noted efforts to help establish a new Roma middle class. Hungary was, three years ago, the first country in Europe to include classes about Roma history, culture and the Roma Holocaust in the national curriculum, he added.