The Roma/Traveller minority is probably one of the more marginalised ethnic groups in the EU facing discrimination as one of the main obstacles to their incorporation within society as full-fledged citizens. In recent years, abundant documentation has been produced indicating huge disparities between Roma and non-Roma in key areas such as education, employment, health-care, housing and other fields. Nevertheless, the efforts to bridge these gaps rarely reached the level of comprehensiveness required to address long-standing structural problems.

Despite the increase and improvement of the European legal instruments promoting equal treatment (especially the Council Directive 2000/43 implementing the principle of equal treatment or persons irrespective of their racial or ethnic origin) the anti-discriminatory legislation will be only effective as far as the mechanisms established to implement its provisions are also effective.

In this sense, the Roma EDEM project aims at reducing the existing gap between anti-discriminatory legislation and institutional practices while including the Roma/Traveller issue in the European political agenda through the following general objectives:

§         Promotion of an anti-discrimination approach within public services and fostering of systemic policies improving the access of the Roma/Traveller people to education and employment

§         Promotion of capacity building and specific training of stakeholders specially at local level

§         To empower the Roma and Traveller associations and incorporate their participation into the decision-making process

§         To improve the access of Roma and Traveller associations to all the available information and resources to combat discrimination

§         To promote a quality and non-stereotyped information concerning Roma and Traveller reality and culture

§         To foster trans-national, inter-institutional and inter-sectorial cooperation among all agents involved in the field of equal treatment

§         To increase the involvement and participation of the regional and local administration with key competencies in the implementation of the anti-discrimination policies

For the achievement of these objectives, the project will develop training and awareness raising activities mainly in the field of monitoring anti-discrimination legislation and policies at local level in education and employment, as well as the empowerment of the Roma/Traveller associations in all participant countries.

The project combines a local and European approach in all activities, counting with a trans-national association made up of five specialised bodies for the promotion of equal treatment and two NGOs with a proven experience in the fight against discrimination from Spain, Portugal, Northern Ireland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania.

The preparatory phase of the project was carried out from the 1^st March to the 31^st August 2004, while the two year implementation phase will last from the 1^st December 2004 to the 1^st December 2006.