Why the EU Must Include Roma in Its Democracy Strategy – COMMENTARY

Democratic resilience starts at home – but the EU is failing its largest minority. The European Union’s understandable focus on external threats obscures a dangerous blind spot: the political disenfranchisement of the Roma, a growing electorate left vulnerable to manipulation and far-right scapegoating

The European Union remains fixated on external threats to democracy – disinformation, authoritarianism, foreign interference. Yet it continues to ignore a critical internal vulnerability, one that anti-democratic actors have long exploited: the Union’s own failings on inclusivity and minority rights.

Europe’s largest ethnic minority, the Roma, still faces systematic exclusion. In Italy, over 15,000 Roma live in irregular housing, exposed to forced evictions. In Slovakia, an education system described as ‘apartheid’ steers Roma children into lifelong poverty. Hungary has repeatedly been warned over school segregation. A 2021 survey by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) found that 33% of Roma experienced discrimination while job hunting.