CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS AS A COMBAT SPORT. 

REFLECTIONS ON THE EUROPEAN ROMA INSTITUTE 

 

TINA MAGAZZINI1 

 

Abstract: This article aims at problematizing the relation between identity recognition, economic 
redistribution, and political representation in the debate around Roma inclusion in contemporary Europe. 
Given that culture has increasingly become politicized, by analyzing the emergence of the European 
Roma Institute for Arts and Culture I reflect on the political and economic potential and drawbacks that 
cultural identity holds in a European society in which capitalism has turned into a cultural trait. 
 
Keywords: European Roma Institute, cultural diversity, recognition, minority inclusion 
 
Summary: I. INTRODUCTION; II. A EUROPEAN ROMA INSTITUTE (FOR ARTS AND CULTURE); III. 
DISCRIMINATION OF A “TRUE EUROPEAN MINORITY” AND THE ETHNICIZATION OF MARGINALITY; IV. 
ROMA POLITICS, ERI’S POSITIONING AND A NOTE ON METHODOLOGY; V. MAIN CRITICISMS. THE 
CULTURAL, THE ECONOMIC AND THE POLITICAL; V.1 Cultural Concerns (or Concerns about Culture) and 
Counter Arguments; V.2 Socioeconomic Concerns and Counter Arguments; V.3 Political Concerns and 
Counter Arguments; VI. CONCLUSIONS. ON ELITISM, CULTURE AND ‘THE IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE’ 
 

 

 

British democracy recognizes that you need a system 
to protect the important things of life, and keep them 

out of the hands of the barbarians. Things like the 
opera, Radio Three, the countryside, the law,  

the universities...both of them! 
 

(Sir Humphrey, Yes Prime Minister) 

 

 

 

1 Human Rights Institute. University of Deusto, Bilbao (tina.magazzini@deusto.es).  
An earlier version of this article was presented at the IPSA congress in Poznan, Poland, 23-28 July 2016. 
I would like to thank Julija Sardelic and Diana Popescu for organizing the panel 'From Misrecognition to 
Redistribution: Ethnic Discrimination and the Politics of Difference' and providing insightful comments, 
as well as the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback. 

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I. INTRODUCTION 
 

Within the debate on cultural diversity management and antidiscrimination in 
European societies, the Roma2 have come to constitute—particularly in the last 
decade—a minority towards which a full set of ad hoc integration legislation, measures 
and policies have been adopted. 

 
In parallel there has been a rapidly growing literature in the fields of political 

science and sociology addressing Roma representations in politics and policies. The 
increase in research on Roma-targeted policies from scholars such as Aidan McGarry, 
Mihai Surdu, Peter Vermeersch, Huub van Baar, Katrin Simhandl, Martin Kovats, 
Joanna Kostka, Nicolae Gheorghe, Will Guy, Nidhi Trehan (among others) have 
explicitly addressed socio-economic mobility of Roma migrants in the context of 
contemporary European policies on migration and ethnic minority protection. 

 
This literature necessarily builds upon anthropological reflections on the nature 

of ethnic identity and identification, and call into cause debates such as Spivak’s 
strategic essentialism, how to operationalize group ‘ethnicity’ and ‘culture’ into rights 
(and negation of rights) linked to these identity markers, and discussions around the 
legacy of Gyspsy Studies in modern Romani scholarship. While a comprehensive 
review of the existing literature on minority rights in general, and Roma identity politics 
in particular, is out of the scope of this article3, it is loosely within this strand of 
research that the following reflections can be situated. 

 
This article aims at locating the recent European recognition and categorization 

of the Roma as an ethno-cultural minority by analyzing the emergence of a new 
institutional body intended at promoting Roma culture—the European Roma Institute 
for Arts and Culture. The contribution of this article to the wider discussion on identity 
and cultural integration that this special issue tackles is to analyze and problematize the 
existing tensions revolving around the issues of cultural legitimacy and knowledge 
production of minority cultures. Because narratives about identity are defined by 
structures of power (how they are told; by whom; in what context, etc.) I believe that a 
better understanding of the creation of the European Roma Institute, and the resistance it 
encountered, has implications that go beyond the potential for success or for harm that 
this specific institute holds. Such reflections aim at raising some of the dissonances, 
overlaps and contradictions in how identity politics can be framed in a European society 
in which capitalism has turned into a cultural trait. 

 
 

2The term “Roma” is used in political documents of the European Commission, European Parliament and 
the European Council as an umbrella expression “which includes groups of people who have more or less 
similar cultural characteristics and a history of persistent marginalisation in European societies, such as 
Sinti, Travellers, Kalé, etc.” (European Commission, 2010). This definition, its usage in policy documents 
and its implications will be problematized later in the article (see section III). 
3For a thorough analysis of expert practices of Roma classification see the recently published book Those 
Who Count (Surdu, 2016). 

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Since the narratives of poverty migration and hostility towards the ‘ethnic other’ 
are often conflated, the initiatives to tackle such issues can also find themselves 
entangled into more than one aspect at once. 

 
In other words, in an enlarged European Union in which Roma from CEE 

countries have been the great losers of the nineties’ transition to a market economy 
(Kovats, 2012; Sigona, 2011; Vermeersch, 2012) how can the risk of displacement (in 
which identity politics tend to displace struggles for redistribution), reification (the 
essentialization of a culture or a minority) and misframing (the political dimension of 
misrepresentation) be dealt with and overcome? (Fraser, 2000, p. 108, 2005, p. 9) How 
does a European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture affect other policies addressed to 
the same minority, and what are the strengths and liabilities of this project? 

 
In order to explore this conundrum, this article will a) outline what the object of 

the study is –ERI–, and why it is relevant b) provide an overview of the context, in the 
form of a brief history of how we got to the present debate, and of who the main 
stakeholders are c) give an account on how the information was collected and situate the 
specificities of the ERI debate d) draft a resumed yet systematized assessment of what 
the main criticisms that have been brought so far to the ERI project are, how they have 
been addressed by the supporters of the Alliance for ERI, and organize them according 
to the three broad themes that emerge as the most relevant ones for this debate (the 
cultural, the economic and the political)4. The vocabulary used (recognition, 
redistribution, misframing) is borrowed from Nancy Fraser’s theory of justice, but the 
approach taken in this article incorporates the critiques moved to Fraser (and much of 
the recognition theory) which, rather than seeing the problems of displacement and 
reification as pertaining primarily to social movements and their potentially 
contradictory claims for recognition, acknowledge the central role of institutions and of 
the political arena. 

 
 
II. A EUROPEAN ROMA INSTITUTE (FOR ARTS AND CULTURE) 

 
In March 2015 a joint article by George Soros, founder and chair of the Open 

Society Foundations, and Thorbjørn Jagland, currently serving his second term as the 
Secretary General of the Council of Europe, announced on the European Voice that a 
European Roma Institute (from now on ERI) was being set up (Soros & Thorbjørn, 
2015). 

 
While acknowledging that some of the most salient issues with regard to 

Europe’s Roma population are racism and inequality of opportunity, the raison d’être of 
ERI as an Institute “of Arts and Culture” was presented as fundamentally a matter of 

4 This analysis is rooted in the conviction that some of the most salient issues in contemporary’s Europe 
culturally complex societies are class, exclusion and racism. For the purpose of this article I will 
concentrate on the discussion around Roma culture/ recognition, with the European Roma Institute debate 
as a backdrop, but questions relating to power dynamics and structural (particularly socio-economic) 
inequalities are impossible to overlook completely. 

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recognition and of implementing art. 27 of the ICCPR to the right for Roma to “enjoy 
their own culture”; in short, it has to do with those traits which the first article of this 
special issue has identified as defining cultural elements of minority groups. 

 
More specifically, the opening statement of the article explaining the creation of 

ERI read:  
 

“For more than four decades Europe’s Roma community have wanted to 
establish an institution that would give their music, art and unique 
traditions their own stage. Across the continent, such bodies exist to 
celebrate an array of cultures, nationalities and identities. Yet, there is 
nothing of this kind for Roma. Many feel this absence, particularly 
among Romani campaigners, educators and intellectuals. It compounds a 
sense of exclusion and denies all of us the opportunity to celebrate the 
Roma influence on our shared cultural life. We are joining forces to help 
put this right”(Soros & Thorbjørn, 2015). 

 

The article then went on to speak about exclusion, marginalization and 
segregation, a vocabulary which Romani studies scholars, policy analysts and the 
general public alike have grown accustomed to find systematically linked to the 
descriptions of Europe’s Roma. The answers to the question that gave the title to the 
story (“Why we are setting up a European Roma Institute”) offered by Soros and the 
CoE’s Secretary General are however fundamentally rooted in matters of cultural 
identity, rather than socio-economic ones. The main justifications provided for the need 
of the ERI are: 1) Combating the negative stereotypes about Roma 2) The belief that 
ERI will become a powerful source of self-esteem: “It would act as an important 
symbol—and symbols are important, as is the ability to tell one’s story in one’s own 
voice. […] Perhaps most important, it would provide a landmark for Roma children to 
look upon and feel a sense of belonging and pride.” (Soros & Thorbjørn, 2015) 3) 
Explore the ways in which Roma life has shaped, and been shaped, by other cultures 
and forces, underlining similarities as well as differences (this point is however 
expressed more as a tentative possibility, the main issue remaining that of stereotypes 
and self-esteem). 

 
This core message was reiterated a few months afterwards, when in September 

2015 Jagland issued the statement: “the Council of Europe wants to help celebrate the 
contribution of Roma art, history, and tradition to our shared cultural heritage. […] The 
European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture will spread greater understanding of 
Roma culture and challenge unhelpful stereotypes. I hope that over time it will become 
a source of pride and self-esteem for our European Roma citizens” (Council of Europe, 
2015). These affirmations were accompanied by the specification that the project will be 
Roma-led –which it is: the bios of the 16 members of the Alliance for ERI are available 
online, as are the details of the four NGO members5– and that funding, resources and 
political support would be provided by the Council of Europe and the Open Society 

5See the webpage of the Alliance for the European Roma Institute. 

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Institute (which according to the consultation document prepared by the Council of 
Europe Secretariat Towards a Creation of a “European Roma Institute” in 2014, will 
be contributing 200,000 euros each per year)6.  

 
For anyone who has been following the politics of Roma identity over the past 

years, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the creation of the ERI (or rather, the 
declaration of intention of the creation of the ERI) was accompanied by perplexities and 
criticism “from the inside”: on whether this is an endeavor that should be taken up by a 
public body such as the Council of Europe; on whether this is an effective avenue to 
pursue the stated aims; and on whether Roma should be framed as a cultural minority to 
begin with. The relatively small but vastly diverse universe of academics, policy 
makers, activists, non-governmental and international organizations who can loosely be 
defined as being invested in the cause of advancing rights for Europe’s Roma have had 
as divergent opinions on ERI as their background and scopes are. 

 
Arguably, the heated and often personal and confrontational debates that this 

debate triggered go beyond the set-up of the ERI itself. Revolving around the concepts 
of Roma authenticity, legitimacy, ethnic representation and cultural hegemony such 
exchanges have tapped into a complex set of underlying assumptions that often go 
unproblematized, and whose analysis can help bring some clarity to understanding 
wider struggles around Roma identity politics. 

 
So far no criticism towards ERI has come from right wing parties nor from 

mainstream media (possibly, because it is still in the making), but the accusations 
between Roma and pro-Roma associations, activists and academics has been 
particularly polarizing. 

 
On the one hand, ERI has been welcomed by a number of individuals and 

organizations as a beacon of hope for addressing stereotypes and countering a negative 
image of Roma identity that is rife in mainstream media and politics; on the other hand 
it has been accused of doing more harm than good to the advancement of the Roma 
cause by others. The wider question that I believe this controversy raises is: how does 
the cultural and identitarian debate (the recognition and valorization of Roma culture via 
an institute backed by the Council of Europe) reflect and/ or shape the political process 
of representation and of economic redistribution at the EU policy-making level? 

 
III. DISCRIMINATION OF A “TRUE EUROPEAN MINORITY” AND THE ETHNICIZATION 
OF MARGINALITY 

 
As illustrated in the first article of this issue, Europe’s approach to the 

democratic management of cultural diversity has been –and is– a complex and ever-
changing compromise between political ideals (the defense of cultural diversity as an 
ethical imperative), practical needs or potential conflicts that require regulation, and the 

6 In the CoE Secretariat consultation document the estimates given speak about the CoE contributing to 
one third of the budget with 200K euro per year, OSF also contributing to one third of the budget with 
200K euro per year, and the rest coming from other funders (Council of Europe, 2014, p. 4). 

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existing gaps and inconsistencies in interpretations of what the “cultural third sphere” to 
be defended and promoted amounts to (see Ruiz Vieytez in this issue). While only 
recently acknowledged by EU policies, ethnic origin and religion are increasingly 
important markers recognized as basis for discrimination.  

 
The latest European legislation seems to take stock of these developments and of 

the changing attitudes towards cultural diversity, as demonstrated by the ‘Tackling 
discrimination’ section of the European Commission DG Justice Legislation’s 
repository opening statement. Such inception reads “For many years the focus of EU 
action in the field of non-discrimination was on preventing discrimination on the 
grounds of nationality and gender. A few years ago, however, the EU countries 
approved unanimously new powers to combat discrimination on the grounds of racial or 
ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation” (European 
Commission DG JUST, 2016). 

 
The attention towards relatively new categories of discrimination (where the 

“newness” refers to the categories and not to the discriminations, obviously) with regard 
to ethnic origin, sexual orientation, age, religion/ beliefs and disability are important 
steps forward in anti-discrimination laws and policies. If compared to the 
Eurobarometer Reports of the seventies, eighties and nineties, the difference in 
vocabulary, content and concerns are strikingly telling7. Additionally, beyond the 
abovementioned categories (and the possibility of multiple and intersectional 
discrimination between them), in the last two decades—with a steep curve in policy 
measures over the past few years—the Roma have come to be recognized, or 
constructed, as a “category” of its own in European directives, recommendations, and 
reports (Surdu & Kovats, 2015). Generally not subsided under neither of the said 
groups, yet they are invariably included amongst those minorities considered to be most 
at risk of discrimination (a quick look to any survey on attitudes towards minorities in 
Europe shows that this concern is well-founded)8, and are often featured in surveys and 
policies as a stand-alone category. 

 
This trajectory is the product of both political and historical circumstances: the 

Balkan wars of the nineties and the breakup of Yugoslavia, the swift move of that 

7 In a 1970 report detailing the results of a survey study on the “Europeans and European Unification” (in 
the six countries of the European Community at the time), a large section was dedicated to analyzing 
what is filed under “Cultural resistance of the ethnocentric type”. This was described as inability to 
identify with a larger community, with the attachment to one’s cultural identity (expressed as the fear to 
lose this identity) and translated into “a deeply felt, basic kind of resistance [towards a European 
integration]” (Commission of the European Communities, 1970, p. 19). It therefore seems that we have 
come a long way towards building a Europe that is more open to cultural diversity, despite the recent rise 
of populist anti-immigrant parties. 
8 Every second Roma interviewed for the EU Minorities and Discrimination Survey (EU-MIDIS) in 2011 
reported that he or she had been discriminated against in the previous 12 months (European Union 
Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2011), and the EU-MIDIS II from 2015 shows similar data (European 
Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2016). According to the Pew Research Center, in 2015, 86% of 
Italians, 60% of French, and more than a third of Spanish, German and British populations hold negative 
sentiments about Roma (Stokes, 2015).   

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region towards a market economy, the breakup of the USSR and the EU’s increased 
attention towards minority protection and rights with the Copenhagen criteria for 
accession, in ways however that inherently encouraged “form over practice” 
(Vermeersch, 2012, p. 6). As a result, Central European countries adopted the 
Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and most of them 
currently recognize the Roma as a national minority, but discrimination has all but 
decreased over the past two decades. In most of Western European, despite the fact that 
Roma communities have been residing for centuries in countries such as Italy, France or 
Germany, they have not been granted the status of national minority9, and the EU 
enlargements of 2004 and 2007 have been narrated by mainstream media as carrying the 
danger of a ‘Roma invasion’ from the East (Solimene, 2011). 

 
With Recommendation 1203 “Gypsies in Europe” (1993), based on a report by 

Josephine Verspaget (who later became Chair of the Council of Europe’s Special Group 
on Roma/Gypsies) the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe identified the 
Roma (even though the terminology ‘Roma’ in policy emerged later, and the EU 
documents from the early nineties invariably refer to ‘Gypsies’) as a “true European 
minority”, and more specifically a cultural one, stating that “[a] special place among the 
minorities is reserved for Gypsies. Living scattered all over Europe, not having a 
country to call their own, they are a true European minority, but one that does not fit 
into the definitions of national or linguistic minorities. […] Gypsies greatly contribute 
to the cultural diversity of Europe […] be it by language and music or by their trades 
and crafts” (Council of Europe, 1993, p. 1).10 

 
The Europeanization of the Roma issue was further institutionalized by the 

European Parliament resolution of January 2008 which called for a EU Strategy on 
Roma, based on a motion by Hungarian MEP Lívia Járóka (Jároká, 2008)11, and 
eventually found a middle ground between European political will (and funding) and 
national responsibility in the approval of the National Roma Integration Strategies 
(European Commission, 2012)12. 

9The Roma are officially recognized as a national minority in Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, 
Hungary, Montenegro, FYR Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Sweden, Ukraine; 
as a ‘traditional national minority’ in Finland, and as a ‘racial group protected under the Race Relation 
Act of 1976’ by the United Kingdom. They have no special legal status in most other European countries 
(Bunescu, 2014, pp. 66–67). 
10 Italics added. For a critical analysis of how, over the 1990s, the Roma issue has been increasingly 
defined in cultural terms, see the article “Problems of Intellectual and Political Accountability in Respect 
of Emerging European Roma Policy” (Kovats, 2001). Kovats’ main argument is that framing the presence 
of the Roma people in Europe as a matter of discrimination and of cultural identity, rather than 
identifying the causes of socio-economic problems faced by many Roma people such as poverty, 
unemployment, poor housing, health etc. serves the interests of mainstream institutions, but is detrimental 
to the Roma communities themselves. 
11 The Parliament’s resolution was supported by the European Roma Policy Coalition (ERPC) as well as 
by governments of member countries of the Decade of Roma Inclusion, an international initiative 
launched in 2005 by the World Bank and the Open Society Institute to support the adoption and 
implementation of Roma-targeted action plans in eleven former communist countries plus Spain. 
12 The decision of the European Commission to adopt a common strategic framework was largely based 
on the inability demonstrated by European governments to guarantee access to fundamental rights to its 

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The growing commitment of European institutions towards the so-called ‘Roma 
issue’ has given heed to questions related to the need to adopt social and cultural 
policies explicitly directed at an ethnic minority (which however shy away from being 
affirmative action policies) and to whom the beneficiary population of such policies is 
composed of13. Therefore to identify or be identified as ‘Roma’ has come to constitute, 
particularly in the last decade, an ad hoc category in surveys on discrimination, 
inclusion/exclusion and marginalization. For instance, the standard classification of 
discriminated groups according to the latest Eurobarometer Report “Discrimination in 
the EU in 2015” can be appreciated in the following sample question: “Do you have 
friends or acquaintances who are…? 1) People whose ethnic origin is different from 
yours 2) Roma 3) Gay, lesbian or bisexual 4) Disabled 5) Of a different religion or have 
different beliefs than you 6) Transgender or transsexual” (European Commission DG 
JUST, 2015, p. 10).  

 
According to the formulation of the survey we can draw the conclusion that 

Roma should not be treated as an ethnic minority within other “people whose ethnic 
origin is different from yours”, nor as a group which has “different beliefs” from the 
mainstream, but rather as a category of their own. The previous Eurobarometer of 2012 
went further, and included a specific chapter titled “The case of the Roma” which 
presented Roma as “Europe’s biggest ethnic minority” (European Commission DG 
JUST, 2012, pp. 107–117) yet at the same time it clearly set them apart from the section 
on “Ethnic origin as grounds for discrimination” (European Commission DG JUST, 
2012, pp. 28–34). Similarly, the 2014 Report by the Secretary General of the Council of 
Europe “State of Democracy, Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Europe” featured a 
stand-alone category of Roma14 which was set apart from the section on “Ethnic and 
national minorities” (Jagland, 2014, pp. 46–48). 

 
In practice, it seems to be a banal platitude to state that Roma are an ethnic 

minority15 (as a matter of fact, they are generally presented as Europe’s largest and most 
discriminated against ethnic minority), even though one that comprises of many highly 
diverse and dispersed groups (European Commission DG EMPL, 2004, p. 6; Tremlett, 
2014)16, but their ethnicity is framed as somehow of a ‘different kind’ from that of most 

Roma minorities through the already existing policies and legislation, such as the Equal Treatment 
directive (European Commission, 2000). 
13 Since European institutions have no binding power over how each state chooses to identify and 
recognize its minorities, every country has built its own Roma strategy identifying its beneficiaries based 
on the national perception of what the ‘problem’ is and who counts as ‘Roma’ (Surdu, 2016).  
14 In this report, the definition used is the following: “the term “Roma” used at the Council of Europe 
refers to Roma, Sinti, Kale and related groups in Europe, including Travellers and the Eastern groups 
(Dom and Lom), and covers the wide diversity of the groups concerned, including persons who identify 
themselves as Gypsies.”  
15 The issue of whether they are one ethnic minority or many is debatable. Roma elites have however 
always claimed, to the best of my knowledge, that despite great diversity they constituted one people, and 
that claims to the contrary were attempts to divide and disempower the Roma movement. In 2000, the 
International Romani Union (IRU) publically announced that the Roma people constituted a nation. 
16The situation of the Roma in an enlarged European Union released by the EC DG Employment and 
Social Affairs (2004) specified: “At a number of points in this study, the term “Roma” or “Romani” is 
used as shorthand for the broad umbrella of groups and individuals. In no way should this choice of 

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other ethnicities –even though there is no legal definition of ethnicity, as discussed in 
the first article of this special issue and elsewhere (see Ruiz Vieytez, 2014, p.14). Thus, 
if ethnic origin alone (in the sense of constituting a visible minority with a shared Indian 
ethnic origin) is considered insufficient to understand the representation of Roma 
identity in the public sphere, the issue of cultural specificity must be addressed (how 
does it differ from mainstream European national cultures, or how has it been 
constructed as being different from the mainstream?). 

 
The Council of Europe, as mentioned earlier, has played an important role in 

establishing a narrative that puts the concept of a shared Roma cultural identity at the 
center of the discourse. Almost one decade after the earlier cited Recommendation 1203 
(1993) the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe passed another 
Recommendation 1557 (2002) on the “Legal situation of the Roma in Europe”, picking 
up and developing the “Gypsies in Europe” document, but also introducing a radically 
new element, the concept of Roma as a ‘socially disadvantaged group’. Point 4 of the 
recommendation reads: “Roma form a special minority group, in so far as they have a 
double minority status. They are an ethnic community and most of them belong to the 
socially disadvantaged groups of society” (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of 
Europe, 2002). 

 
While it is well documented that the Roma are amongst the groups most at risk 

of discrimination, and that there are wide gaps in the access to education, housing, 
health and employment between Roma and non Roma (European Union Agency for 
Fundamental Rights - UNDP, 2012) by framing this as a sort of intrinsic characteristic 
of the Roma themselves (and not of the structural and institutional racism of Europe’s 
majoritarian societies, surmountable by changing the dynamics and power relations at 
play within these societies) within a wider framework that, up to that moment, had 
emphasized Roma’s minority culture status, it risks conflating the two issues. While 
well intentioned, and founded upon a legitimate concern for a real situation of 
disadvantage, this kind of language can potentially entrench, rather than help overcome, 
stereotypes on Roma, naturalizing the criteria used to evaluate Roma’s human capital as 
one of poverty, exclusion and marginalization. Examples of this approach of thinking of 
the Roma as intrinsically problematic abound, and further articulation of this can be 
seen in point 9 of the same recommendation, which states “[t]he majority population 
must accept Roma into society without assimilating them, and support Roma as a 
disadvantaged social group. Roma have to accept the rules governing society as a 
whole, and they can be called upon to be more active in handling their own problems, 
but this must be associated with appropriate conditions, encouragement and incentives 
provided by the state.” Above and beyond the paternalistic tone, such statement seems 
to identify the Roma as both the victims and responsible of exclusion, forgetting that the 
drivers of marginalization are wider structures of economic and political power17, and 

terminology be taken as an endorsement of approaches aimed at homogenizing Roma and other groups 
perceived as ‘Gypsies’ in Europe or at eliminating the rich diversity among Roma, Gypsies, Travellers 
and other groups perceived as ‘Gypsies’.” 
17Point 5 of the same recommendation states: “Most Roma are currently faced with a rather severe 
economic situation in most of the member countries of the Council of Europe. Despite efforts in the social 

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making the implicit assumption that Roma culture is somehow at odds with ‘the rules 
governing society as a whole’. 

 
This definition is not inconsequential, as it has informed much of the recent 

European policy-making on Roma inclusion. It is interesting to observe how, in 
different settings, the definition of ‘who the Roma are’ has been declined to fit different 
agendas over the past years (Surdu, 2016), and particularly the definition of the Roma 
that ended up being adopted in the European Commission Communication 173 “An EU 
Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies up to 2020” is (European 
Commission, 2011). This reads: 
 

“The term ‘Roma’ is used—similarly to other political documents of the 
European Parliament and the European Council—as an umbrella 
expression which includes groups of people who have more or less 
similar cultural characteristics, such as Sinti, Travellers, Kalé, Gens du 
voyage, etc. whether sedentary or not; around 80% of Roma are 
estimated to be sedentary” (European Commission, 2011, p. 2).  
 
This definition follows and references another similar one, the Commission Staff 

Working Document (European Commission, 2010) which is cited at note 2 of this 
article, and with which the only significant difference is that the definition from 2010 
does not explicitly cite the Gens du voyage18, it includes the sentence “they share a 
history of persistent marginalization in European societies”, and (importantly) there is 
no mention of the issue of nomadism/ sedentary lifestyle. It thus seems reasonable to 
interpret this gradual shift in definitions as an attempt, on behalf of the European 
Commission, to emphasize the socio-economic dimension of disadvantage of the Roma 
while moving away from the cultural stigma element—particularly in the form of atavic 
and romanticized nomadism that the Council of Europe had been promoting. The shift 
towards a focus on the socio-economic dimension is substantiated by the contents of the 
Communication on the Framework for the National Strategies of 2011, which opens 
with a section titled “Improving the situation of Roma: a social and economic 
imperative for the Union and its Member States”, and the fact that in the whole 
document the word socio-economic appears 29 times, while the word culture not even 
once. 

 
 
 
 

field, the market economy, especially the neo-liberal version of it, has marginalized disadvantaged social 
groups including Roma even in the most developed European countries. In central and eastern Europe the 
economic and political transition has aggravated their socially disadvantaged situation” (Parliamentary 
Assembly of the Council of Europe, 2002). 
18 The suggestion that the addition might not be coincidental is purely speculative. However, given the 
statement of Viviane Reding, DG Justice Commissioner at the time, who likened Sarkozy’s government 
deportation of over a thousand Romanians and Bulgarians of Roma ethnicity to Vichy France’s treatment 
of Jews during the second world war—a policy that was developed after an incident in Loir-et-Cher 
involving French Gens du voyage— it is not so far-fetched (Doytcheva, 2015). 

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IV. ROMA POLITICS, ERI’S POSITIONING AND A NOTE ON METHODOLOGY 
 

Above and beyond the Council of Europe, the European Commission, and the 
European Parliament, some of the most relevant actors, stakeholders and policies in 
shaping the discourse on Roma identity in the past decades have been19:  

 
- The IRU (International Roma Union), which promoted the First Romani 

Congress in 1971 and obtained consultative status at the UN, and can be seen as 
the birth of Romani nationalism; 

- The Germany-based Roma National Congress (RNC), which advocated for the 
rights of Roma immigrants in the 80s and 90s; 

- The European Roma and Travellers Forum (ERTF), created in 2004 with the 
support of the Finnish government, functions as an umbrella body of different 
Romani grassroots organizations. It managed to maintain privileged relations 
with the Council of Europe, where it held consultative status until 2015. It 
developed the largest and possibly most representative network of Roma civil 
society, but lost much of its leadership and status in the past few years. On 30 
March 2015, the ERTF issued a (explicitly negative) position paper on ERI;  

- Academia, and particularly the Gypsy Lore Society –founded in 1888 in Great 
Britain with the stated goals of promoting “the study of Gypsy, Traveler, and 
analogous peripatetic cultures worldwide; [the] dissemination of accurate 
information aimed at increasing understanding of these cultures in their diverse 
forms” (The Gypsy Lore Society, 2016)– and the European Academic Network 
on Romani Studies (EARNS), a joint programme of the European Commission 
and the Council of Europe created in 2011 as an interface between academic 
researchers and political decision makers, with the objective of allowing “for the 
implementation of better conceived policy initiatives based on reliable evidence” 
but whose funding was not renewed in 2015 (Matras, 2015). Opinions within 
these networks have been mixed, but Yaron Matras, a linguist and member of 
EANRS’ Scientific Committee, has been one of the most vocal critics of ERI;  

- The Project on Ethnic Relations (PER, 1991-2012) was founded in anticipation 
of interethnic conflicts that were to erupt following the collapse of Communism 
with the support of the US Department of State. It had a prominent role in 
setting the agenda for the joint Council of European and OSCE Human 
Dimension Seminar, and included leading activists Nicolae Gheorghe and 
Andrzej Mirga (one of the founders of the Alliance for ERI), as well as Romani 
scholar and linguist Ian Hancock, and resulted in the creation of a ‘Contact point 
for Roma and Sinti’; 

- The Open Society Foundations and George Soros, the key supporter of ERI, has 
been involved with pro-Roma projects for over two decades, promoting 
initiatives such as the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), the Roma 

19 A full analysis of the Romani civil society movements and NGOs is out of the scope of the analysis, 
nor could a few paragraphs do it justice. The purpose of this section is simply to situate ERI within the 
constellation of Roma and pro-Roma institutions, associations and activist groups that have emerged in 
the past few decades. For a more in-depth analysis, see, among others (Bíró, Gheorghe, & Kovats, 2013; 
Bunescu, 2014; Friedman et al., 2015; Matras, 2013). 

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Participation Programme, the European Roma Coalition Programme (ERCP), 
the European Roma Grassroots Organization (ERIO) and the Roma Education 
Fund (REF); 

- Other initiatives include the European Language Curriculum and the Central 
Council of German Sinti and Roma (the latter is amongst the founders of the 
Alliance for ERI); 

- In the last decade other institutional projects have emerged, such as the Decade 
for Roma Inclusion (2005-2015) –a multinational project backed by the World 
Bank, OSI, UNDP, OSCE, the CoE, the ERTF and national governments aimed 
at promoting Roma inclusion– and the European Platform for Roma Inclusion 
(from 2008 onwards) which brings together the EU, IOs and national 
governments20; 

- The NRIS (National Roma Integration Strategies, 2011-2020), were developed 
in almost all EU countries in 2011-2012 following ten basic principles 
(European Commission, 2012), and revolved mainly around ‘bringing up to 
level’ Roma communities with mainstream European societies on the four pillars 
of health, housing, education and employment. Additionally, the programmes 
ROMED (Roma mediators) and ROMACT (capacity-building for local 
administrations to work with vulnerable Roma population) have been 
implemented, albeit not in all countries and managed by the Council of 
Europe21. The Alliance of Cities and Regions for the Inclusion of Roma is 
another CoE-sponsored platform that has endorsed the ERI. 

 
Against the background of Roma-targeted European policy developments, of the 

wider changes in migration and integration politics of the past few years, and of the 
evolution of the Roma civil society movement(s), ERI has been in need to situate itself 
among the already existing Roma networks, policies and programmes, and so far has 
struggled to do so. There are a number or reasons for this, and its supporters might 
argue that its mandate and mission have been grossly misinterpreted. In the next section 
I will go over the main criticism that it has received, organized by what I identify as 
being the three main ‘threats’ or liabilities of the project. These are, I argue, the dangers 
of reification (that ERI’s recognition struggle might end up simplifying and reifying 
Roma identity), of displacement (that ERI’s recognition struggle risks eclipsing the 
socioeconomic issues of redistribution) and of misframing (that ERI’s recognition 
struggle is elitist, undemocratic, nontransparent and that it misrepresents the 
community’s boundaries). 

 
These reflections, which attempt to problematize the existing debate rather than 

resulting in any strong “taking of position” on the desirability or not of ERI, are based 
on qualitative analysis, and the empirical material they build upon has been gathered 
according to the principle of triangulation between secondary sources (legal and policy 

20 Some see in these recent multinational projects that attempt to bridge the European level and national 
governments on Roma inclusion the weakening of the ERTF (Jacquot & Vitale, 2014). 
21 For information on the National Roma Integration Strategies, see “EU and Roma” at 
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/discrimination/roma/index_en.htm. For information on the ROMED and 
ROMACT programmes, see http://coe-romact.org/.  

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TINA MAGAZZINI 

documents pertaining to the ERI’s creation and to Roma targeted policies and legal 
definitions more in general), participant observation by taking part in a number of 
events that have been carried out over the past few years by the epistemic community 
that works on this topic, by following the ongoing email exchanges within the EARNS, 
as well as through informal conversations with promoters of ERI, EU officers and other 
stakeholders involved in the process22. 

 
This article being part of a larger long-term research, some of the background 

information was also drawn from interviews with national policy-makers involved with 
the drafting and/ or implementation of the Roma integration strategies (in Italy and 
Spain), personal involvement in European Commission and Council of Europe 
activities, programmes and projects, as well as in a wider ongoing reflection amongst 
colleagues working in academia, in NGOs and in governmental organizations on how to 
bridge information and transfer knowledge between (and within) different fields to 
contribute to evidence-based inclusion policies.  
 
 
V. MAIN CRITICISMS. THE CULTURAL, THE ECONOMIC AND THE POLITICAL 

 
Analyzing the debates, the concept notes, the exchanges between the different 

actors that have expressed their opinion on the set up of a European Roma Institute so 
far, taking into account their official and unofficial statements23, the main concerns of 
the critics to ERI seem to be of three fundamental types: cultural (the problem of 
reification), socioeconomic (the problem of displacement) and political (the problem of 
misframing). 

 
I here summarize the main concerns of each, in order to make explicit the issues 

raised and the spheres of concern, to see which have been or can be successfully 
addressed, and which ones not (or with more difficulties). Also, a close look at each 
individual aspect can help challenge broad generalizations and distinguish between 
critiques based on the form the institute is taking, on its competences, and help avoid 
misinterpretations. 
 

22 In practice, this consisted of closely following the development of the ERI over the past two years, 
particularly by taking part in the two days closed workshop and one day open conference “Nothing about 
us without us”, where the ERI project was presented and debated (Budapest, October 2014) and which 
resulted in a Special Issue of the Rights Journal of the ERRC (Ryder et al., 2015); by participating in 
various EANRS meetings and in its final showcase event, which took place in Strasbourg in April 2015 
and included a roundtable reflection with Ulrich Bunjes, CoE’s Special Representative of the of the 
Secretary General for Roma issues at the time, accompanied by formal and informal reflections around 
the material circulated on this topic, such as Yaron Matras’ post-mortem or ‘balance sheet’ of the 
network, which was mostly about ERI (Matras, 2015). Other events and conferences attended in which 
the role and desirability of a Roma Cultural Institute were discussed include “When the Oil Runs Out, 
People Will Need Horses” (London, June 2015) and “Challenging Romanophobia” (University of 
Brighton, November 2015), in which members of the Alliance for ERI presented their vision of the 
institute and made a case for its necessity. 
23 For a not exhaustive, but still relevant and useful chronology of the plans for a European Roma 
Institute, see A Chronology: Plans for a European Institute (Fosztó, 2015). 

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V.1 Cultural concerns (or concerns about culture) and counter arguments 
 
Some of the criticisms raised to the ERI have revolved around the legitimacy of 

cultural production. Preoccupation on behalf of (mostly non Roma) Romani scholars 
that the ERI would lay claim to academic authority and turn into some kind of censor or 
official arbiter for the standardizing of what Romanipé is or should be, have been 
echoed by the European Roma Travellers Forum’s statement on ERI: “Culture is 
intimately linked to the life and identity of the community. It can be promoted and 
assisted but it cannot and should not be directed from above by a political organization. 
A top-down imposition of a standard culture would deny the rich pluralism of genuine 
Roma traditions” (European Roma and Travellers Forum, 2015, p. 2). 

 
On a similar note, Monica Rossi has noted: “Theoretically, the idea of a ‘Roma 

culture’ (ANY culture, really) as a unique block is meta historic as a category […]. The 
term ‘culture’ refers to an anthropological concept ideated in 1871 by E.B. Tyler and is 
a tool which was born under a scientific paradigm that contemporary anthropologist call 
‘essentialism’. In the globalized and fundamentally intercultural world we are living in, 
the use of such concept is unsustainable in scientific terms as it suggests a static vision 
of human groups that no longer exists, thus making the very name of the Institute 
obsolete” (Rossi, 2014)24. 

 
In response to this critique, ERI promoters have noted that cultural institutes 

have been set up in history by virtually every national, regional and cultural minority. 
One member of the Alliance put it this way: “Well, I see ERI as a space for cultural 
autonomy of Roma, where Roma get together and refine this public space. Not as a 
national state, but for issues that are important for our identity, for our priorities, for 
shaping a discourse, reacting to something. I think that was the general hope.” 

 
Reflections upon the role of the institute invariably bring up, as is to be 

expected, questions about ownership and Roma cultural production. One supporter of 
the institute reflected upon the role that the ERI could play by calling into cause the 
issue of Roma participation and having a voice in shaping the ways in which Roma are 
portrayed:  

 
“In terms of culture I think we need to take the initiative: we know what 
our culture is, we can share our cultural experience, and it’s for us to 
share it. It’s not for other people to define us. This is where I see the role 
of arts and culture. […] And I think that if we do a good job artistically—
good quality writing, good character development, just like any good 
piece of art, that has universal themes and concepts, then that will 
translate and will be something to be shared with non Roma as well, 
because we’ll be sharing the universality of our human experience. But 
we can only do that if we are in control, through institutes like ERI, 

24This brings up the open-ended debate on whether the Roma can and should be considered one ethnic 
minority to begin with, which has been explored in detail elsewhere (Friedman et al., 2015; McGarry, 
2014; van Baar, 2011; Vermeersch, 2012). 

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through artists that have a vision of something creative, original and that 
can be shared. […] We need culture, we need stories, we need paintings, 
we need poetry, we need everything. That is what establishes a 
relationship.” 
 
There is, of course, always an inherent risk in the institutionalization of any 

expression of identity and culture, in that such an operation always requires a 
simplification of sorts, but this is far from being a case unique to the Roma, or about 
Roma cultural identity. It should suffice to remember France’s attempt to organize a 
forum to debate and define “Frenchness” a few years ago and its failure, despite the 
body politics behind it being one of the oldest, most centralized and homogenized 
existing nation-states25. 

 
The wider issue with respect to the Roma has to do with the fact that this process 

is still in the making, and as such there seems not to be (as of yet) shared foundational 
myths or cultural traits that are already agreed upon and accepted by the whole of the 
groups included under the cloak of Roma—other than the past and present widespread 
discrimination, which in turn risks being framed as an identity trait in and of itself. 
Referring to the European Commission’s definition used in the Framework Strategy 
document of 2012, Matras has rightfully pointed out that “Although an effort can be 
recognized here to confront stereotypes through emphasizing that the majority of Roma 
are sedentary, the definition is self-contradictory in referring, on the one hand, to 
completely separate populations such as Sinti/Kale, the Gens de Voyage and the vague 
notion of ‘Travellers’, and on the other hand, to ‘similar cultural characteristics’. There 
are, empirically, no similar cultural characteristics that can help identify the groups 
named in this definition” (Matras, 2013, pp. 37–38). However, very similar statements 
could be made with respect to virtually every people now constituting a nation, 
previously to the processes of nation-building and state-building that took place over the 
past centuries. The difference and specific difficulty of the Roma in producing and 
establishing a set of ‘similar cultural characteristics’ is not so much that Romanés is not 
spoken by all Roma, but rather that this endeavor involves a minority that does not have 
a strong territorial concentration and whose members are also, beyond being Roma, 
nationals of different European countries who have an already strong(er) identity they 
often subscribe to. 

 
Another criticism raised to ERI that falls in the cultural realm is that it claims to 

want to educate non Roma about Roma culture, but that by creating a Arts and Culture 
Institute which is explicitly Romani, it fosters cultural self-segregation. To this, one of 
the ERI founders has responded:  

 
“The role of ERI is to help Roma artists to give them visibility, to come 
together and work together. And they are of course free not to do so or to 
go mainstream, but there are currently 10.000 Roma works rotting in 

25 In 2009 Nikolas Sarkozy charged Éric Besson, the Minister of Immigration, Integration, National 
Identity and Mututally-Supportive Development at the time to organize a “[g]reat debate on national 
identity”(see Jeannot, Tomc, & Totozani, 2011; Le Monde, 2009a, 2009b).  

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archives and improper spaces in Central and Eastern Europe, and do you 
know how many Roma artists were ever exhibited in mainstream cultural 
spaces? Two of them. So how can we talk about segregating Romani arts 
and culture, when it doesn’t in fact have any visibility at all?” 
 
All these critiques are, in one way or another, rooted in the preoccupation that 

the identity model of recognition tends also to reify identity. In Nancy Fraser’s words, 
“Stressing the need to elaborate and display an authentic, self-affirming and self-
generated collective identity, it puts moral pressure on individual members to conform 
to a given group culture. Cultural dissidence and experimentation are accordingly 
discouraged, when they are not simply equated with disloyalty. So, too, is cultural 
criticism” (Fraser, 2000, p. 6).  The by-product of recognition can be, in this sense, mis-
recognition: by reifying group identity it might overshadow the struggles internal to the 
group for authority and the politics of cultural identification, lending itself to simply 
reproducing the dynamics it was born to fight against. Whether the ERI is successful in 
its bid for the promotion of arts and culture as a means to empower Roma artists and 
intellectuals largely lays in the mechanisms and structures that it will set up to cope with 
this risk. One of its supporters elaborated on the potential of the content of Roma artistic 
production with the following: 

 
“When I’m talking about a culture of Roma, by Roma, for Roma, I am 
talking about creating something new, something avant-garde. I am 
talking about creating something that is not excluding traditional Roma 
dance and music, but not exclusive to that. There are new things that we 
can develop because we are a culture, and we are a people, and just as 
every other culture and other people we are continuing to evolve. There 
are new things that are happening: we are not stuck in time, even though 
often we are studied as if we were stuck in time, in anthropology and 
sociology. And I think that that is something that art and culture can help 
bring to light.” 
 

V.2 Socioeconomic concerns and counter arguments 
 
These kind of criticism largely stem from the fact that the meaning of 

integration, originally used in EU documents as a policy to fight social exclusion (Daly, 
2006) has in more recent times come to indicate immigrant minorities’ route to 
becoming part of their host country, and has been further redefined in the case of Roma 
to (re)include a socioeconomic dimension. 

 
As Monica Rossi wrote in her position piece on the ERI, “Regardless of how 

you portray the Roma (music, artistic contributions etc. etc.) citizens will continue to 
have in mind the image of destitute Roma begging with their children and living in 
shanty towns […]. It is not clear how the situation of destitute Roma will be improved 
by the existence of this Institute. […] If you solve the problems at the ground level, also 
the perception of Roma citizens by non Roma citizens are going to improve, but it must 
be based on the creation of real life opportunities for mutual exchange. In a Europe 

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dominated by the crisis which is affecting all Member States with severe cuts to social 
services, money should be invested in initiatives which are sustainable under a cost-
benefit perspective” (Rossi, 2014, p. 2). 

 
Without entering the debate on the sustainability of culture (Littoz-Monnet, 

2007; Psychogiopoulou, 2006; Tretter, 2011), this position makes a claim that cultural 
productions can neither serve as a substitute to anti-discrimination, nor that it is realistic 
to expect that cultural performance and the arts can fill a gap in the fight against 
prejudice and exclusion, or encourage states to enforce equality and human rights 
legislation.  

 
This is a rebuttal of the claim made in the concept note for ERI: “Sectoral policy 

achievements have […] been insufficient to produce a major and deep change, not least 
because they address primarily socio-economic challenges without tackling the root 
causes that stand in the way of meaningful progress: ignorance, hatred and mistrust” 
(The Alliance for the European Roma Institute, 2015, p. 2) and can be articulated in a 
few different points. On the one hand, Roma cultural performances have been widely 
appreciated (and at time appropriated) by majoritarian societies over the centuries, yet 
racism against Roma continued to prevail. On the other hand, the European Roma and 
Travellers Forum has claimed that “is absurd to decry socio-economic efforts. 
Ignorance, hatred and mistrust are intimately linked to the living conditions of a 
majority of the Roma and the first step against anti-Gypsyism and eliminating 
stereotypes is to provide the Roma with decent housing, education and employment and 
helping them to enter into roles in which they have hitherto not been accepted.” 
(European Roma and Travellers Forum, 2015, p. 1)26.On a similar note, Martin Kovats, 
ex advisor to the office of Commissioner Spidla on the development of the European 
Roma Platform and Common Basic Principles for Roma Integration27, and more 
recently special adviser to ex Employment Commissioner László Andor, formulated in 
clear terms what, borrowing from Fraser, I have called the risk of displacement: “Aren’t 
ignorance, hatred and mistrust more likely to be symptomatic of social and economic 
relations than their ‘root cause’? […] In making the ‘root causes’ of poverty, exclusion 
and discrimination (as well as of multimillion euro policy failure) matters of the mind, 
no consideration need be given to the structural and systemic factors that many of us 
believe play an important role in how Roma is understood. The system is fine, just the 
people that are wrong. They think wrong thoughts about Roma. Furthermore, it is 
suggested that these wrong thoughts are essentially a legacy of the past (rather than 

26The odd thing in the official statement issued by the ERTF on the non-paper that was leaked about the 
initial plans to set up ERI was that they reproduced, practically verbatim, the positions expressed by 
Yaron Matras in EANRS. 
27The 10 Common Basic Principles for Roma Integration constitute the guiding principles for the 
Framework on Roma Integration 2020, and are: 1) Constructive, pragmatic and non-discriminatory 
policies; 2) Explicit but not exclusive targeting; 3) Inter-cultural approach; 4) Aiming for the mainstream; 
5) Awareness of the gender dimension; 6) Transfer of evidence-based policies; 7) Use of European Union 
instruments; 8) Involvement of regional and local authorities; 9) Involvement of civil society; 10) Active 
participation of the Roma. While point 3 can be interpreted in ways that might lead to cultural recognition 
policies, the whole approach is clearly geared to achieve equality of opportunities in the socio-economic 
dimension. 

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generated within contemporary society). What is required is re-education or at least 
some good PR and the promotion of a ‘positive image’. These neo-liberal ideology may 
be the answer, but there is no reason to think so” (Kovats 2015, EARNS email 
exchange). 

 
Nancy Fraser, in her 2000 article on Rethinking Recognition, identified two 

different possible branches of the issue of displacement: one possibility is to see 
misrecognition as a problem of cultural depreciation, so that the origins of injustice are 
seen in discourses, and not as socially grounded, institutionalized norms. The other 
option is to acknowledge that cultural injustices are linked to economic ones, but to see 
the problem from a culturalist perspective, thus assuming that maldistribution is simply 
a secondary effect of misrecognition. The ERI positioning, as presented in its original 
concept note, could be associated to this second way of seeing things which understands 
economic inequalities as expressions of cultural hierarchies: “It follows from this view 
that all maldistribution can be remedied indirectly, by a politics of recognition: to 
revalue unjustly devalued identities is simultaneously to attack the deep sources of 
economic inequality; no explicit politics of redistribution is needed” (Fraser, 2000, p. 
4). 

 
In short, what comes first, poverty or the stereotypes about the poor? This begs 

an additional question of whether, and eventually how much, the stereotypes about the 
Roma have to do with mental associations of the stereotypes of marginalization with an 
ethnic group, what kind of contact exists between members of majority society and 
Roma individuals and communities, and what role cultural production and 
representation (particularly mainstream media) plays in this. 

 
One commentary of an ERI supporter when asked to locate the socio-economic 

issue within the making of the ERI was: “Because when we start talking about the 
confusion between class/ socio-economic status and ethnicity, when that becomes a 
problem, as it is in media and very much in Europe today… If we have people who are 
Roma and who are middle class but who are passing for white, then maybe at some 
point they intermarry and maybe they don’t share everything with their children, and 
Roma people are also forgetting that they are Roma, of Romani heritage. That’s also a 
problem.” 
 
V.3 Political concerns and counter arguments 

 
The main criticism related to what I have identified as the problem of 

misframing has to do with whether ERI is an independent institute or part of an inter-
governmental agreement within the Council of Europe (something similar to what the 
ERTF used to be). According to the Alliance, ERI is to be an independent body, with no 
ambition of turning into a political representative organization aiming at replacing 
existing structures or competing with them (Brooks June 2015, EARNS email 
exchange). 

 
 

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In response to this claim, concern has been expressed about the difficulty of 
playing a genuinely independent role when the funders are two big players of Roma 
identity politics themselves (Matras September and November 2015, Kovats July 2015, 
EARNS email exchange). The opening statement of the 2015 Alliance for ERI concept 
note on the creation of the Institute reads “ The ‘European Roma Institute’ (ERI) is 
proposed as an independent organization with the mission of increasing the self-esteem 
of Roma and decreasing negative prejudice of the majority towards the Roma by means 
of arts, culture, history, media” (The Alliance for the European Roma Institute, 2015, p. 
1). The same concept note, however, also identified as one of ERI’s core functions that 
of providing policy advice: “As a policy adviser ERI will provide expert advice in its 
areas of competence, when required by the Council of Europe, its members and other 
partners” (The Alliance for the European Roma Institute, 2015, p. 3). 

 
It can of course be argued that “its areas of competence” having been identified 

as arts and culture, there is no competition between the ERI and organizations such as 
the ERTF, nor is there necessarily a conflict of interest in being the beneficiary of the 
Council of Europe’s policies, and providing advice to the same body on issues 
regarding Roma culture. This however becomes less clear cut should ERI start advising 
the Council of Europe, its members, or other partners on topics that are of political 
nature, such as inclusion policies and plans for Roma minorities. 

 
This is a different matter from the debate around who holds legitimacy of 

cultural production on Roma. As mentioned in the section on cultural criticism, some 
scholars expressed their concern about the potential consequences of appointing an 
official arbiter (ERI) in matters of (Roma) cultural legitimacy. Regarding power 
structures and the vision of ERI as a threat that might ‘police culture’ and oppose 
scholarly meritocracy, it has been pointed out that there already is, and there has been 
for quite a long time, a strand of literature and of specialized scholarship on Romani 
culture that has, for better or for worst, shaped the terms of the debate up until now. The 
fact that these studies have so far come mostly from non-Roma academics, and not from 
Roma activists, artists or lobbyists does not make them, per se, more objective, since 
meritocracy itself is shaped by a cultural understanding of worth and deservingness. 

 
In the words of a member of the Alliance for ERI: 
 
“On the issue of power structures I think we have to go beyond just 
talking about media: of course it is an important factor in reproducing 
and strengthening anti-Gyspsysm, but we have to look beyond it. And 
another important arena where anti-Gypsysm is produced and reproduced 
is academia. We have to touch on this, because what happened, and what 
has been an interesting experience to observe about ERI, is that 
opposition to this initiative has come from two circles, mainly: one were 
some Roma from the ERTF, because they have a vested interests in 
securing more resources for themselves; and then it was a bunch of non 
Roma academics manipulating discourses and ideas about ERI that we 
chose not to answer to. About meritocracy and the objective, scientific 

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approach to social sciences dealing with Roma, this critique really is 
nonsense: because on the one hand it is assumed that academia is guided 
by meritocracy, when it is very clear that is not only guided by that. 
[...]Too often you hear the argument that if you are Roma, you cannot be 
an academic on Roma studies, just because you would be biased. I don’t 
know how to react to this, and how to overcome these discourses, 
because I would expect a more friendly environment, I expect that these 
scholars would understand what Romani culture is. And there are moral 
and ethical considerations…I simply don’t know how to work on that.” 
 
While the issue of knowledge production and Roma-led cultural representations 

pertain to the field of recognition, it is difficult for it not to ‘spill over’ into politics. 
Going back to the ‘areas of competence’ of the ERI (on which advise might be sought 
from policy-makers), categories become somewhat blurred. Should ERI be exclusively 
an artistic endeavor, it would most likely not have been met with the same degree of 
hostility from certain sectors. Art and culture are however never politically ‘neutral’, 
and even less so in contemporary Europe, where culture—due to its flexibility and 
ambiguity—has become a very apt concept for those wanting to defend the existing 
political order. The idea that racism and inequality are fundamentally a culturalized 
problem to be tackled by culturalized measures has been found problematic by many 
(Mokre, 2013), ever more so when it is met by a “trickle down minority social 
integration” approach in politics, which translates into the proposition “growth first, 
social and minority inclusion will follow” (Cianetti, 2016, p. 18).  

 
Additionally, frame-setting has to do not only with how the problem is 

addressed, but also with the ‘scale’ at which it is addressed, which is among the most 
consequential of political decisions. According to Fraser, the problem of misframing 
concerns the boundary-setting of the political, and can be considered the defining form 
of injustice in the globalizing age. She identifies the problem of misframing where 
social movements impose ‘a national frame on a global problem’ (for example by 
ignoring the responsibility of the financial markets, global economy and offshore 
factories on social dumping). In the case of Roma identity politics, the critique seems to 
go along similar lines, but the directionality is reversed, since the concern is that Roma 
identity is being framed as a European transnational one while what is being overlooked 
and overridden are the rights of EU citizens who have not only an ethnicity and 
minority culture, but also citizenship rights. 

 
The wider preoccupation of many scholars is with the ‘Europeanization of 

Roma’ (Friedman et al., 2015; van Baar, 2015; Vermeersch, 2013). In practice, the main 
concern is that framing Roma as a transnational European minority might have the 
unintended consequence of ‘absolving’ single EU member states from (culturally, 
among other things) integrating the Roma minorities who live on their territory28. The 

28By cultural integration I do not mean assimilation, but rather a comprehensive set of policies that could 
incorporate Roma culture and history into school textbooks while providing Roma with equal 
opportunities. 

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risk, as seen by some, is that of naturalizing the fact that Roma minorities are treated as 
second-class citizens in their own countries. 
 
 
VI. CONCLUSIONS. ON ELITISM, CULTURE AND ‘THE IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE’  

 
After providing some background for the emergence of Roma identity politics in 

contemporary Europe, in the previous section I grouped the critiques moved to the 
project of a European Roma Institute according to three broad categories: cultural (the 
problem of reification), economic (the problem of displacement) and political (the 
problem of misframing). In Elizabeth Andersons’ vocabulary, these can be thought of as 
inequalities of esteem –when some groups stigmatize, demean and monopolize 
honorable status to themselves–, socio-economic inequalities –when different set of 
rules apply to different groups depending on their socio-economic status–, and 
inequalities of standing –or political power, in the sense of a society which weights the 
interests of members of some groups more heavily than others (Anderson, 2010, 2015). 

 
According to the documents, exchanges and debates held about ERI to date, the 

declared purpose of its proponents is clearly that of tackling the first set of issues: that 
of cultural recognition and esteem. Nonetheless, given that there are increasing 
instances in which economic and social problems are constructed as “cultural issues” 
(particularly in relation to migrant communities, with marginality seen as a ‘cultural’ ill 
of the poor), the ways in which ERI will carry out its activities, and what kind of 
definition of culture its members will adopt, will determine whether the institute is 
capable of addressing the identified challenges. 

 
The wider picture in which the ERI debate can be situated is that, in modern 

times, the concept of ‘race’ has gradually turned into ‘ethnicity’, and ‘ethnicity’ into 
‘culture’, which has come to occupy a more subtle, pervasive and versatile social space 
–a good example of which is what has been labeled “reasonable anti-Gypsism” (van 
Baar, 2011). In this sense, while the hybridity of Roma identities makes it difficult for 
Roma to present a coherent ‘Romani voice’ in cultural terms, McGarry has suggested 
that “it is the political identity of Roma which has the capacity to change through formal 
representation in the public sphere with Roma actively determining how they are 
understood” (McGarry, 2014, p. 770). However, there is no reason to show that political 
unity might be more easily achieved than cultural representation. 

 
Cultural identity as an economic, status, or upward mobility opportunity also 

plays a role: Roma culture has historically been appreciated, but generally as a ‘low 
culture’ compared to things such as the opera and academic scholarship. This calls into 
question what the purpose of culture is to begin with, and what is its function. 

 
In this regard, one of the Alliance members commented: 
 
“The main focus of ERI will be to address Roma in a positive way. 
Because up until now the dominant discourse is that Roma are an issue, 

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they have problems, they are a problem … and we want to show that you 
can look at Roma from another perspective. […] To give you an 
example, when we talk about Roma events, it is always about music, and 
dancing. That’s a folklorization of what we mean by Romani arts and 
culture. Nobody talks about the works of Roma artists who deserve 
recognition and visibility. So when people think of Roma culture it is not 
‘high culture’, we always think of Roma ‘low culture’…so at one 
moment, as a joke, I was thinking that we could give ERI a more 
controversial name, something like ‘Roma Academy for Verifying Arts, 
High Culture, and Top Sciences’.” 
 
Beyond the irony, this statement raises the important point of conceptualizing 

culture and cultural systems as extensions of power.  
 
The fact that Berlin was chosen as the city where ERI will be set up holds an 

important symbolic value, as does the recent appointment of Valeriu Nicolae, a 
Romanian Roma that comes from grassroots activism, as Special Representative for the 
Secretary General for Roma issues at the Council of Europe. The decision regarding 
who is appointed as Executive Director of ERI (an open call was launched by the 
Alliance in August 2016) will give a better sense of the direction in which the project is 
moving. 

 
As Bourdieu wrote in his Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of 

Taste, “For an adequate interpretation of the differences found between the classes or 
within the same class as regards their relation to the various legitimate arts, painting, 
music, theatre, literature, etc., one would have to analyze fully the social uses, 
legitimate or illegitimate, to which each of the arts, genres, works or institutions 
considered lends itself” (Bourdieu, 1987, p. 18). In order to contribute to a meaningful 
interpretation of these struggles, the role of academia in general, and Romani studies in 
particular, could and should be that of adopting a more inter-disciplinary and inter-
sectoral approach to the topics of ethnicity, culture, and knowledge production. 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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