Category Archives: Slovakia

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Slovakia Lunik IX

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An interview of the Roma mayor of the largest Roma settlement in Slovakia: Lunik IX.

Marcel Šaňa says that he experienced the biggest prejudices as a Roma when he wanted to buy a family home.

For the third time, he was sovereignly elected mayor of Lunik IX, where he has lived for over forty years. He graduated from university while working with his wife, and this year he also completed his doctorate.

“Maybe this whole thing was good for something. We stayed in Luník and were able to help the people here,” explains Marcel Šaňa, the mayor of the Košice district of Luník IX, who is also the vice-chairman of the Roma Coalition Party, in an interview with Postoj.

He took his children to school elsewhere because, according to him, the elementary school in Luník was weak. He explains why the education of the Roma is important, how they cleaned Luník, and also revealed whether he ever plans to move out of the Roma settlement.

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Slovak Roma Cookbook

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Peter Pollak, the former plenipotentiary for Roma in Slovakia published a cookbook of Roma cuisine. As Peter Pollák writes right at the beginning of the book, food should serve as a destroyer of even the biggest barriers. While preparing this book, he is said to have encountered the usual prejudice in Slovakia about how Roma cuisine mainly consists of eating dogs. According to him, he flipped through 2,000 pages of various Romani cookbooks and found no mention of “barking” food there.

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Slovakia: Roma Spirit

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We know the finalists of the 14th Roma Spirit award! Among all the 138 selected applications for the award, the Roma Spirit Committee has chosen 21 exceptional organizations, employers, personalities, municipalities and actions that contribute to the construction of equal chances for all!

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Slovakia and Roma Ghettoes

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According to the Atlas of Roma Communities from 2019, up to two-thirds of Slovak Roma (300,000) live in segregated settlements outside or on the outskirts of villages, but also on a single street, in an apartment building or in a housing development within villages. In general, those settlements that are further away from the villages are in a worse condition. According to some experts, the settlements must disappear if the Roma from this environment are ever to integrate into society. “There is a lot of scientific evidence that segregation and ghetto life are incompatible with social integration,” says Marek Hojsík, who monitors Roma integration policies in EU states at the Central European University in Budapest.

However, settlements are not actually disappearing, but expanding. If a municipality or city with a Roma settlement builds apartments for Roma, according to SME findings, this happens directly in the settlements.

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Extremism and Attacks Against Roma

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The most frequent victims of extremist attacks in the physical world in 2020 and 2021 were members of the Roma ethnic group. This is stated in the Monitoring Report on the State of Extremism in the Slovak Republic for the period of 2020 and 2021 and the update of the tasks of the Concept of Combating Radicalization and Extremism until 2024.

The material states that right-wing extremism is the most dominant form of extremism on the territory of the Slovak Republic, while it represents on average up to 97.4 percent of all cases of criminal prosecution for crimes of extremism.

The international Engage project consisting of a team of social psychologists from the Slovak Academy of Sciences and experts from partner organizations from Hungary and Spain presented ways to better the attitudes of the majority towards the Roma. In this regard, they recommend expanding mutual contact between the Roma and non-Roma populations.

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Slovakia: Roma Mayors

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A record number of Roma mayors won in the municipal elections. In the next election period, there will be 52 of them.

For comparison – in 2010, there were only 12 of them. Despite the growing number, Roma are only slowly getting involved in local government affairs.

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Slovakia and Discrimination

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A week ago, the Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Government of the Slovak Republic for Roma communities published the results of the most comprehensive research on the life of Roma in recent years.

According to the study, the direct experience of Roma with discrimination is decreasing. Twenty-one percent of Roma said they had experienced some form of discrimination because of their skin colour or ethnicity in the past year. In a similar survey from 2016, it was 30 percent of Roma.

Reality is somewhat different:

As a Roma, social worker Tomáš Ščuka encountered discrimination all his life, most often in restaurants and bars, but also at the doctor’s office or in offices. “Now that I’m older, it’s less, but you can still see the signs. For example, in a restaurant they make me wait longer, or they serve me later than the person who came after me. That is such latent discrimination,” he says.

Discrimination against Roma is apparently gradually changing its form and becoming more hidden somewhere, but it still hasn’t disappeared. Ščuka compares it to the Kotlebo people in the parliament, who gave up open racism years ago, but still send racist signals to their voters when they talk, for example, about maladaptive fellow citizens.

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Slovakia and Extremism

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The most frequent victims of extremist attacks in the physical world in the period of 2020 and 2021 were Roma, while the most frequent targets of extremist attacks in the virtual space were Jews.

This is stated in the Monitoring Report on the State of Extremism in the Slovak Republic for the period of 2020 and 2021 and the update of the tasks of the Concept of Combating Radicalisation and Extremism until 2024, which was approved by the government today.

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Slovakia: New Ombudsman

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The current Slovak ombudsman Mária Patakyová’s term of office ended on March 29, due to disagreements within the governing coalition and the non-existent agreement on the name of a successor. This post has been vacant for more than seven months. And it still doesn’t look like the triple coalition is in agreement on one name.

Due to the absence of a new public defender of rights, the office has received more than 500 suggestions on the table that are waiting to be evaluated. The Institute of the Public Defender of Rights is an independent body whose mission is to protect the basic rights and freedoms of citizens from public administration bodies, but above all to draw attention to rights violations and request redress.

The plenum elects the ombudsman for five years from candidates proposed by at least 15 deputies. A majority of those present is sufficient for election, which, in the case of an agreement, could also work for the candidate of the minority coalition.

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Slovakia and Minority Languages

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The Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sports (MŠVVŠ) of the Slovak Republic has set aside special funds for 2022 to finance development projects aimed at supporting the teaching of the mother tongue of the national minority. 12,000 euros are allocated for this purpose.

The area of ​​focus is activities intended to support the education of children and pupils belonging to national minorities in their mother tongue in accordance with the fulfilment of the Slovak Republic’s obligations towards the European Charter of Regional or Minority Languages. “The project aims to support preparatory activities for the implementation of the teaching of the language of the national minority (Croatian, Polish, Ruthenian, Romany, Ukrainian, German, Czech or Bulgarian language) and for the actual implementation of the teaching of the language of the national minority,” the Ministry of Education stated.

12,000 euros were set aside for the call, the maximum contribution amount for one applicant is 2,000 euros. Eligible applicants are the founders of primary and secondary schools teaching the language of the national minority or the teaching language being Slovak.

Well, the amounts are tiny, but better than nothing …

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Slovakia, Insurances, and Roma

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Tens of thousands of people from the poorest communities change health insurance every year. They are profitable for insurance companies mainly because they use little health care if at all, meaning their fees are very profitable to the companies. Questionable business practices were revealed in this context by the data of the Value for Money Unit (ÚHP), which is explained in the interview by analyst ADAM MAREK from the unit.

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Slovakia: Roma Mayors

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Another mayor in Slovakia is a Rom. This is a trend, as more and more Roma get involved in politics. In this case, it is in Strány pod Tatra, where the Roma candidate won. The village of roughly 2’300 inhabitants has above 90% of Roma residents.

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Health Insurance and Roma

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According to the Slovak ÚHP analyst Marek, Health insurance companies make money from poor Roma. It is immoral. “The facts are quite clear. The health outcomes are terrible, at the level of the third world, and those insured are profitable for health insurance,” says Marek.

Bad.

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Slovakia and Racism

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Slovakia and Racism

The director of the Slovak National Theatre (SND), Matej Drlička had to resign following sarcastic remarks he made about “national artists” who worked in the past or still work in SND ensembles, “that I guess they are the most important people in Slovakia”. He also added comments addressed to politicians who are he said, are fulfilling their constitutional duties, noting “that unfortunately they are still breathing”.

He was referring to Roma.

The Minister of Culture Natália Milanová accepted his resignation and stated that the remarks were beyond the bounds of decent behaviour. The former Culture Minister, Marek Maďarič, on the other hand stated that “Matej Drlička is such a high-quality manager that I would fight for him even against the will of the committee if I were the minister, even more so because he apologized promptly and, in my opinion, sufficiently for his statement.”

No comments.

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Slovakia and Roma

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The Slovak summary of the EU studies on Roma. The Slovak Paper also gives a better understanding of how the survey was done.

The report “Roma in 10 European countries”, which also deals with the situation of Roma in Slovakia, points to little progress since the last survey in 2016. Although there has been some improvement, the general finding is that Roma families still live in shocking conditions and their prospects for education and employment are poor. Data for Slovakia showed that 14 percent of Roma experienced harassment motivated by hatred on ethnic grounds, which is a significant – 23 percent decrease – compared to 2016.

The survey was conducted on a sample of 8,500 Roma respondents with information on more than 20,000 household members in the Czech Republic, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, North Macedonia, Serbia, Spain and Italy, while FRA also supported the collection of national data on Roma in Bulgaria and Slovakia.

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Slovakia and Paramilitaries

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The paramilitaristic group Slovenský branci ends after 10 years of activity. The movement said goodbye to its supporters on Facebook, where its representatives say they have already won their battle.

The commander, Peter Švrček, claimed that his movement was trying to protect the nation. In November 2021, the Ján Kuciak Investigative Center drew attention to the fact that members of the group cooperate with Polish extremists, whom they associate with an attack in Ukraine with a pro-Russian background. Some members of the Polish Strelec unit were even part of neo-fascist groups.

In the past, they collaborated with the extreme right-wing Slovak Movement of Revival and together celebrated the establishment of the Slovak state, Aktuality.sk reported. In addition, the portal pointed out that the logo of the conscripts is strikingly reminiscent of the emblem of the paramilitary youth organization Hitlerjugend. We interviewed one of the former members of the SB in an interview, in which he also talked about, for example, how they went to beat the Roma.

Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Slovakia and Roma Education

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A project in Dobšina in Domček, in central Slovakia where teachers together with Romnja help children oif a Roma settlement catching up in their education. The project is not funded because some of the women helping out did not finish high school.

The teachers from Dobšina started almost ten years ago with a few young Roma mothers from the settlement. When we talk about young mothers, we do not mean the age of 18 and over, but children who have children while still in elementary school.

One of them are the now 26-year-old twins, Magdaléna and Mariana, both coaches in the project. Magdalena gave birth for the first time in the seventh grade at elementary school and again sometime later. Both have unfinished primary education, but they are clear in their heads. They want their children and the children of the Dobšina Roma to experience success.

Europe Nouvelles d'Europe de l'est Slovaquie

Slovak MPs Reactions to the EU Vote

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On Wednesday, the European Parliament adopted a set of recommendations aimed at improving “the precarious situation of Roma settlements in the European Union”. MEPs underlined that the Roma – in all the diversity that this term covers – are the largest ethnic minority in Europe and suffer from poverty and social exclusion in several Member States.

This article interviewed the Slovak MPs and their reactions to the vote. The reactions are generally positive and highlight the difficulty to resolve the problems.

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