We thank our clleagues from Center Amalipe for the kindly provided information. 

Annual report "Roma Integration in Bulgaria - 2006" prepared by Center "Amalipe" was recently published. It concerns the main trends in Roma integration process from January to December 2006 with accents on education, social policy, living conitions, connecting EU accession with Roma integration and gender equality. Special attention is paid to institutional an normative framework for Roma integration at national, regional and local levels.

Deyan Kolev, George Bogdanov, Maria Metodieva, Teodora Krumova and Boyan Zahariev are the repor authors. The report combines results from permanent monitoring of the daily activities of certain national institutions with results of field survey about the state of Roma integration in 17 municipalities all over Bulgaria realized by Center "Amalipe" and 8 other Roma NGOs. The monitoring of the activity of central level institutions (such as National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and Demographic Issues, Ministry of Education and Science, Ministry of Labour, and so on) provides information about the real input of resources (funancial and human ones) and about the really implemented activities for Roma intregration by the side of institutions concerne. It indicates also the main tendencies of the governmental policy for Roma integration as well as the changes in it. The field survey reveals the real outputs, outcomes and impact of the activities unertaken by central institutions. It reveals also the main trends in Roma integration at local level without matter whether they are results of a deliberate policy or of a random and unguide process.

The main conclusions about the Roma integration process during 2006 outlined within the report are:

• Roma integration has not been steered by the documents designed to manage it and adopted by Bulgarian government (we called them "Roma strategies."[1]) In practice everything significant, that happened with the Roma integration in 2006 was undertaken outside of the engagements towards the so called "Roma strategies";
• was marked by a significant decrease of the efforts towards the integration of most of the institutions. The debate concerning the integration was taken years back that put into manace even the few things achieved during the previous periods;
• in 2006 the efforts for Roma integration continued to follow the scheme inherited from the previous years: symbolic actions without additional financing from the state budget (with the only one possible exception: co-financing under the PHARE program) and without the additional engagement of new human resources The year of 2006 did not show the presence of serious political will to change the designate scheme.

The report ends with concrete recommendations for converting Roma integration into a straightforward and policy-oriented process as well as for including the Roma community as a partner and an active participant in the Roma integration process. The recommendations are directed to the institutions of executive power, to the Parliament, to the Prsident and to the Roma NGOs. In their totality the recommendations form a basis for building consistent strategy for converting Roma integration into one of the main public policies in Bulgaria.

The report can be downloaded here

Copie from the report could be obtained after request to the following address:

Center "Amalipe", p.o.box 113, Veliko Turnovo 5000, Bulgaria or to e-mail address: center_amalipe@yahoo.com

[1] We call with this name the Framework Program for Equal Integration of Roma in the Bulgarian Society, the Action Plan for the Decade of Roma Inclusion, the Strategy for Educational Integration of Children and Students from Ethnic Minorities,  the Health Strategy for People in Non Equal Position, Belonging to Ethnic Minorities and the National Program for Improving Living Conditions of Roma.