Roma Unbelonging: Racialisation and the EU Strategic Frameworks for Roma

Abstract

The article sets out to examine how European Union (EU) programmes for Roma inclusion and EU member states' implementation strategies suffer from unacknowledged racism and normative whiteness. Our argument is that this lack of progress needs to be examined alongside ideas and imaginations of belonging (legal and civic). The First Framework — we argue — aligns most closely with legal belonging, in that it aims to ensure legal equality for the Roma community whilst putting the onus to change firmly onto the Roma themselves. The Second Framework acknowledges a significant oversight of the First Framework – namely, antigypsyism – and makes combatting it central to its policy goals. Whilst the Second Framework is much more aligned with civic belonging, in that it strives towards everyday experiences and acknowledges the role the majority plays in a successful Roma inclusion, it still fails to adequately imagine Roma as equals in the European belonging. White norms and cultures permeate civic belonging and remain embedded in the text of the Second Framework.