Alvaro Hil Roblens the Human Rights commissioner in the Council of Europe recently in Strasburg presented a report on the Roma rights in Europe. The endangerment of this ethnical population was practically the life motive that went through in all the tones of the report. The main word was about the 10 million Roma in the member countries of the Council of Europe. This story in a kind of report presented by commissioner Roblens, is a story about the check up of the human conciseness in the first decade of the 21st century. The commissioner of CoE only pointed out of the necessity of partnership between authorities, institutions and the Roma themselves for realizing a string of measures on a general civilization level which will support the efforts in the “Roma decade” in all the spheres of the social and economic life. Therefore the base and the priority of every effort in that direction is the education. Due to the low standard, the long year and even the many century non care of the social status of the Roma even in the economic developed countries resulted for them to be without competition on the lowest educational, economic and if you prefer civilization plane. The Roma in Europe today are the dirty conscience of Europe. It is correct, statistically speaking, that among the Roma in the European countries there are doctors, lawyers, teachers, businessmen and politicians. But the fact is that the European authorities, the mother states have done very little to help their co citizens on a more global level do extract them of the base of ignorance. And that is the reason and the consequence of the global social misery which burdens the Roma. The 21st century is the century of globalization. It is an opportunity for everyone and therefore for the Roma as well in the region to include them in the general social economic moving. But the globalization is also a danger for the communities which do not know how to join in the movements, to communicate and to cooperate independently of the national ethnical, religious belonging, to isolate and to marginalize themselves. The Republic of Macedonia is doing a lot but at the same time very little for the Roma community. In this Roma decade, a resolution which our country signed as well about 18 months ago, took an obligation for a real active contribution. But a more precise program can not be evidented anywhere, money and other tools which will guarantee a more aggressive social progress of the Roma community in Macedonia. “The key is your hands” is the title of the campaign of the non governmental Roma association – National Roma Centre in Macedonia. This one and many other non governmental Roma organizations mainly rely on foreign donations for realization of their projects. It is good for them of course that they direct their projects in the direction of education. The data, that from 7868 Roma children who enrolled in the elementary education fewer than 600 finished it, the reasons can not be explained further more. This is a data about the state above all, about its institutions. We believe that we know everything, but the fact is that we do not have enough information about the life of the Roma, about their reality even here under our own balcony, the city crossroads or the shores of Vardar… How many of us are concerned by the fact that thousand Roma families, our co citizens do not have health insurance for example. Of course the state will come out with its statistics saying that the Roma are taking cared of, that this year there are scholarships for 800 Roma, that 1.2 million euros are being separated for them, that we have a Roma municipality, that in these last four years the percentage of Roma children in the elementary education is enlarged from 18 percent to 23 percent, that our country is internationally binned to work intensively on the strengthening of the integration of the Roma in the main society’s currents, that, that… But how quickly to make it up for the decades lost in isolation of the Roma from the society, and especially how the Roma elite to impose in the society as a leading factor for realization of the Macedonian strategy in the Roma decade. The answers of these final two conclusions are the priorities of the states institutions. The beginning of everything is education. And the result of everything it can be only education.

Zoran Ivanov, Director of Macedonian Informative Agency