Europeanisering en de Roma: op zoek naar maatschappelijke inclusie in een nieuwe politieke en institutionele context

Abstract

Since the enlargement of the EU to Central Europe, the EU institutions have been particularly concerned about the problems facing Roma populations in various European countries. This has signalled a new critical phase in the debate about European Roma policy. The EU has built on views and policy frames that have emerged from discussions held by other international actors, but it has also highlighted new priorities. The involvement of the EU thus represents the most recent phase in an ongoing (and far from complete) policy discussion in which European institutions, national governments and Roma activists each have their own voice. In this recent period new lines of competition have emerged between these actors. There is, in other words, a growing European discursive space where the development and contestation of new policy frames and narratives about the Roma can take place. This article explores this new European discursive space and concludes that a new political opportunity structure for Roma activism has emerged with important implications for the way in which the Roma are framed.