SLOVAKIA's cabinet appointee for Roma issues lashed out at the Slovak government for neglecting its strategy to integrate local Roma communities, as its measures have served to segregate rather than integrate one of Europe's poorest minorities, the news wire TASR wrote.
Speaking at a meeting on the 2005 - 2015 Decade for Roma Integration initiative in Budapest, Klára Orgovánová said that the recent Roma riots against social reforms should have sparked a discussion of the minority's problems, but that never happened.
"I had expected the developments to cause us to more deeply discuss our actions, the developments, and the lesson for the future. Unfortunately, such a discussion has not transpired either at the political or societal level," she said.
Last April the Slovak government adopted a strategy to integrate Roma communities into the rest of Slovak society. But the reforms and measures of ministers seem to ignore the strategy, and implemented measures have frequently contributed to the further segregation of Roma communities.
