In February 2005, Bulgaria became one of the signatories to the pledges in the campaign known as the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005 to 2015.

It seems odd, then, in the context that much of the current debate involving the Roma community has to do with housing, that some seem to hold that there should be segregation of the Roma. If you will, apartheid-style “group areas”. The issue, however, is not that simple.

Speaking on July 4 at a ceremony marking Bulgaria taking over the presidency of the Decade of Roma Inclusion, Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said that the Roma had suffered the most in the years after the fall of communism.

According to figures published in the past year, about 60 per cent of Roma live in ethnic ghettoes. About 18 per cent are illiterate, a figure that has doubled since 1989, the time of the beginning of the transition from communism to democracy.

In December 2005, a survey by the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria found that more than half of all Roma children were involved in illegal labour.

Figures reported by Reuters news agency in March 2006 said that nearly 80 per cent of Roma in Bulgaria and Romania lived below the poverty line, and almost half were unemployed.

Similarly to other marginalised communities elsewhere in the world, the Roma are well-represented in crime. Bulgaria’s jails are understood to have a high proportion of Roma.

Media reports have given prominence to crimes involving Roma, from copper cable thefts to ambushes of trains by laying obstacles on tracks. Incidents in the past year have included a December 2005 incident in which a group of Roma was reported to have thrown stones at police investigating an alleged abduction and rape. In the same month, a police sergeant was seriously assaulted and robbed of cash and his pistol by a group of Roma in Sofia’s Zaharna Fabrika neighbourhood. While generalisations must be avoided, a community that includes members that commit serious violence against police clearly has little sense of ownership in society.

Roma are not well represented, to put it mildly, either in Bulgaria’s political or business elite. While there are laws against discrimination, anecdotal evidence suggests that a Roma candidate for a white-collar job will have little chance even of being shortlisted as a candidate.

Several commentators in Bulgaria have seen a link in the support for ultra-nationalist group Ataka and anti-Roma attitudes in Bulgarian society. While Ataka represents an extreme form of racist attitudes, the mainstream media cannot escape criticism either. Apart from the fact that Roma journalists are under-represented in those reporting Bulgarian society for major media outlets, coverage of Roma issues tends to be negative, going by the findings of a survey done by the Centre for Independent Journalism. The survey covered print and media coverage between June and September 2005, finding that in “interpretative” coverage, 35 per cent of reports were negative towards Roma and 32 per cent could be classed as neutral.

An Amnesty International report in October 2005 quoted a European Council for Racial Intolerance report from January that year saying that racist attitudes towards Roma were still rife in Bulgaria. Attacks on Roma had increased since 2004, Amnesty International said.

According to Amnesty International researcher Janina Arsenjeva, “there have been many reports and documents from Amnesty International and the European Council for Racial Intolerance which have outlined discrimination, and rulings from the European Court of Human Rights have also come out in favour of the Roma, which has led to an increase in attacks and hate speech from anti-Roma minds.”

While Bulgaria committed itself to the Decade of Roma Inclusion in February 2005, progress has been mixed, in other words, it cannot be said that there has been none at all.

One apparent shortcoming has been that the process has not been driven at a very high-powered political level. It was only when the country was coming close to the anniversary of the signing that an appointment was made for someone to drive the process at political level, and at that, this was only a Deputy Minister - not a full-ranking member of the Cabinet.

The proposals to which Bulgaria, along with several other countries, committed itself include improving education of Roma through their integration in the schooling system, a Roma education fund, and the introduction of Roma language training and the building of tolerance. There is to be business training for Roma entrepreneurs, inclusion in health insurance programmes, and community development programmes to improve housing and living conditions.

In March 2006, the Cabinet approved a national programme for improving Roma housing conditions.

According to a report by Bulgarian news agency BTA, Deputy Regional Development and Public Works Minister Dimcho Mihalevski told a news conference that the housing would “take into account the specific features of the Roma lifestyle”.

The houses would not be large, so as to make the rent affordable, there would be separate outdoor spaces for animal breeding, and also a fireplace, although it had not been decided whether this would be inside or outside the house. Some of the houses would be rented while others would be sold with mortgage loans provided. In 2006, 204 would be built. Whether or not Roma would live in separate neighbourhood had yet to be determined, Mihalevski was quoted as saying.

In other steps by the Government, the Labour and Social Policy Ministry announced in June that 1.65 million leva had been set aside for 2006 for the implementation of a National Literacy and Occupational Training Programme for the Roma. Work had started in Sofia, Varna, Bourgas, Montana and Samokov, involving 513 Roma taking literacy classes and in Samokov, 15 in occupational training courses.

But it is the housing question that has come to the fore.

In April, people living in or near Sofia’s Zaharna Fabrika district demanded of Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov that he remove illegal structures in the neighbourhood, and that the Roma community be removed from the area. The protestors blamed Roma for crime in the area. The area has seen violent clashes between Roma and non-Roma, which in May 2005 left one man dead.

A month later, 30 shacks in which Roma had been living in the capital city’s Malinova Dolina district were demolished. The demolition was done at the request of the owner of the land on which the shacks had been built. According to media reports, the Roma did not protest against the destruction, saying that living conditions in the shacks were not good enough.

Coinciding with the Bulgarian taking over of the presidency of the Decade of Roma inclusion has been a plan to demolish illegal housing in Sofia’s Vuzrazhdane district.

Although courts gave permission in September last year for the demolition to go ahead, the June 30 deadline to do so was postponed after a group of members of the European Parliament wrote to Prime Minister Stanishev saying that the demolition should be postponed until a long-term solution was found.

After talks involving Borissov, Stanishev and Labour and Social Policy Minister Emilia   Maslarova, it was agreed that the Regional Development Ministry would give 300 000 leva towards building 60 temporary homes on land to be allocated by Sofia municipality.

Only those Roma who had been living in the area before 1996 would be accommodated. Maslarova’s ministry said that it would try to find jobs for the rest in their registered places of residence.  Maslarova said that, through address registrations, the influx of Roma into Sofia should be limited. (This is one aspect of this story that appears to have shades of other societies that have attempted to segregate people according to ethnic identity).

“I won’t accept gypsy camps in Sofia,” Borissov was quoted as saying. It was reported that he was annoyed that the MEPs’ letter had alleged that he had anti-Roma attitudes, a charge that he rejects.

In the meantime, the Roma in Vuzrazhdane will not be sent back to their registered places of residence, pending a long-term solution.  All sides seem to want such a solution, including those complaining about the Roma area, saying that the windows of their apartments have to be kept closed because of the bad smell coming from the area, and again, that the Roma residents are involved in crime.

All that remains unclear is just what that “long term solution” is going to be.