PROJECTS aimed at the integration of Roma communities will be able to secure financing from EU funds. In the current 2014-2020 programme period, the EU assigned almost €300 million for such efforts in Slovakia, government proxy for Roma communities Peter Pollák said on March 17.
These financial resources are part of the Human Resources operational programme for drawing EU funds, administered by the Labour Ministry. Pollák’s office will coordinate the funding of the Roma integration projects.
The programmes are divided into two categories: the first one, focusing on investment projects, gets €250 million, while the non-investment projects for various Roma activities should get €50 million. Pollák called the latter insufficient.
“We will try to increase it,” he said, as quoted by the SITA newswire, and pledged that unlike in the past, when money assigned for integrating Roma was also used for things that had no real impact on the life of the Roma community, in the upcoming programme period there will be clear ways to determine what the projects have to achieve in order to get the funding.
The funding should be primarily directed toward the most problematic locations, based on the Atlas of Roma Communities, which Pollák said is almost ready now.
Funds from the previous programme period, 2007-2013, were drawn ineffectively, according to Pollák, who claims that since he took office in 2012, the drawing of the funds has improved, as reported by SITA. Altogether, 185 projects were funded with the sum of €72 million, which is 41 percent of the allocated money. Most of them concerned school and pre-school education and the building of community centres.
Source: SITA
Compiled by Michaela Terenzani from press reports.
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information
presented in its Flash News postings.
