Strasbourg - The government comments on the 2nd cycle Advisory Committee opinion on Serbia were submitted on 30 September 2009 and made public on 26 October 2009.

“Paragraph 28: Persons belonging to the Roma minority still face discrimination in a number of fields including employment, health and housing. The lack of personal documents of both local and internally displaced persons has still not been tackled in an adequate manner, which has resulted in obstacles to access a number of social rights. More resolute action is needed in the context of the future National Strategy on Roma to tackle these problems.

The authorities of the Republic of Serbia would like to emphasize again the political will and firm determination to ensure complete and effective equality among the members of the Roma national minority by means of adequate measures, which had been identified as one of the most vulnerable social groups in the Republic of Serbia, and of those who belong to the majority, in all areas of economic, social, political and cultural life. Within the last two years, namely in the period after the adoption of the State Report, the state has taken a series of activities and measures contributing to the improvement of the status of the Roma national minority, which shall be addressed in more details in the replies to certain paragraphs mentioned in the second Opinion of the Advisory Committee (see replies to paragraphs 80, 83, 84, 85, 111 and 260).

Within the framework of efforts to mitigate unfavourable social circumstances the majority of the members of the Roma nationality live in and improve their status, on 9 April 2009 the Government of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Strategy for Improvement of the Roma Status (hereinafter referred to as the Strategy), and on 2 July 2009 it adopted the Action Plan which makes the priorities and the recommendations of the Strategy operational. As it is explicitly said in the Strategy, the objective set in this document is the improvement of the Roma status and reduction of differences between the Roma population and the majority population in all areas of social life. Also, this document provides the grounds to identify and apply the measures of affirmative action, primarily in the fields of education, health, employment and housing.

All fields of social life wherein measures for the improvement of the Roma status should be undertaken, have been treated equally important and all of them have been given equal attention. However, the Strategy clearly distinguishes the necessity of application of the measures for the improvement of full and effective equality, which is on the grounds of the statistical indicators, beyond reasonable doubt, infringed in the fields of education, health, employment and housing. Within the scope of measures for the improvement of comprehensive and effective equality in the field of education , the measures to create the system conditions for the inclusion of the Roma in the education system are of particular importance as well as for their longest possible presence in the system (continual education), for the development of a special admission policy for the Roma pupils, for the preparation of education institutions to admit the Roma pupils and the measures for the preparation of the Roma children to be placed in schools. The basic approach for the improvement of the status of the Roma in the field of housing rests on the necessity to legalize the Roma settlements. For the settlements to be determined as settlements that cannot be made legalized and improved, the Strategy prescribes it is necessary to improve the living conditions by applying adequate technical solutions to the existing essential infrastructure within the period before they move out or relocate (water, electricity, access roads, etc.). Regular utilities and technical maintenance should be provided in all Roma settlements by means of the adequate institutional system existing in other parts of towns. The Strategy also prescribes that the settlement co-ordinators should be introduced in the system of maintenance of the settlements as persons permanently employed within the relevant municipal, namely town services. The recommendations contained in the Strategy concerning the field of employment consist of general recommendations, recommendations on the measures for the increase of employment and entrepreneurship among the Roma and participation of the Roma in public services and public works, as one of the measures that might increase the employment among the Roma.”

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