site.btaCabinet Adopts 2023 Roma Inclusion Monitoring Report

The Council of Ministers approved on Wednesday a monitoring report on the implementation of the National Strategy for Roma Equality, Inclusion and Participation, as well as the municipal action plans for 2023. The document was adopted after it was approved by the National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and Integration Issues (NCCEII) under the Council of Ministers.

In 2023, for the first time, Bulgaria is funding measures to support students from Bulgarian communities abroad, including Roma who have received education abroad but have returned to Bulgaria and continue their education here. Support is also provided for teachers who work with such children. Additional Bulgarian language classes have been introduced in pre-school groups with significant numbers of children from other ethnic groups. These are among the activities presented in the report. 

It also considers as positive steps the regulatory guarantee of targeted funds for the appointment of educational mediators, social workers and teacher's assistants, as well as the change in the Ministry of Health regulation, which increased the number of preventive examinations for uninsured pregnant women.

The limited access of the Roma population to health services remains a challenge. A good practice in this respect is the inclusion of health mediators in municipal and state hospitals.

The high proportion of Roma with no qualifications and low education (89.3%) has a serious negative impact on employment opportunities among these communities.

The segregation of marginalised minority populations in isolated neighbourhoods remains a problem, leading to social isolation, deteriorating living conditions for the majority of people there, poor infrastructure and hygiene. Local authorities are still unable to deal with illegal housing construction and offer an alternative to removing it. With funds from the Regions in Growth Operational Programme 2014-2020, 780 social housing units have been built. 1,503 people from marginalised groups, including Roma, are now living in a better environment.

The State is making efforts to prevent and protect against discrimination and violence based on race and ethnicity. In 2023, the National Institute of Justice organized training on these issues for more than 1,500 magistrates, lawyers and other employees of the judiciary and related institutions.