One of the key objectives of the European Union (E.U.) is to enhance social cohesion and so address the poverty and exclusion affecting some of its citizens. The Treaty of Amsterdam provided the legal basis to address these issues and subsequent European Councils (Lisbon, Nice...) agreed objectives to realise a more inclusive society by 2010.

A consequence of these political decisions is the development of the National Action Plans for Social Inclusion (NAPincl), which have been worked out by all Member States for the year 2001 and that should be updated every two years.

The Roma and Traveller minorities are present in all E.U. countries and amount to around 2. 5 million citizens. They suffer from one of the highest levels of social exclusion and disadvantage in the European Union when it comes to rights, services and resources. In addition, the E.U. enlargement to countries with a large Roma population implies that the number of European Roma citizens will increase, over the next few years, to near 8 million.

Despite this situation, the Roma and Traveller communities have not traditionally been and still are not sufficiently taken into account in the different measures initiated by the E.U. on social and employment issues or in the Member States´ inclusion policies.

In the current round of National Action Plans for Inclusion (2001-2003) only three countries (Spain, Greece and Ireland) have included specific measures addressing the needs of the Roma and Traveller communities.