McGill Journal of Political Studies 2014 April, 2014 | Page 88

Czech president’s veto and only barely
passed with a parliamentary override40. The
requirement of political energy, without the
pressure provided by conditionality after
accession, may prevent reforms of culturally
entrenched systems, even assuming the
existence of pro-European political elites. If,
for example, the EU had used conditionality
to force school desegregation or strong antidiscrimination laws before accession, some
of the current problems of Roma social
exclusion may not exist.
In addition, policies of social inclusion
for Roma can be unpopular among the
rest of the population. Roma are generally
viewed negatively across Eastern Europe41.
Longstanding issues like school flight from
desegregating schools is only a micro-level
example of the deep prejudice that exists
against Roma on the societal level42,43. This
makes governments afraid to implement
social inclusion policies, instead “dragging
their feet” against external pressure. When
this pressure is lifted by accession, they
have even less incentive to force unpopular
changes through and risk a potential
backlash. Thus, even when EU pressure
exists, demanded policies are often not
implemented. For example, in the case
of D.H. vs. Czech Republic, the Czech
government followed the European Court
of Human Right’s declaration that they
were in violation of treaty obligations over
continued school segregation with the
commission of a number of studies44. These
Ceetrust.org: Trust for Civil Society in Central and
Eastern Europe (2009) Czech Republic becomes last
EU state to adopt anti-discrimination law.
41
European Commission (2012) Special Eurobarometer 393: Discrimination in the EU in 2012 . [report]
Brussels: European Commission/Directorate-General
for Justice, p. 114.
42
European Roma Rights Centre (2004) Stigmata:
Segregated Schooling of Roma in Central and Eastern
Europe. [report] Budapest: ERRC, p. 68-75.
43
Greenberg, J. (2010) Report on Roma Education
Today: From Slavery to Segregation and Beyond.
Columbia Law Review, 110 (4), p. 936.
44
Amnesty International (2012b) Czech government
still failing to address discrimination against Romani
children in schools | Amnesty International.
40

88 | McGill Journal of Political Studies 2014

studies’ recommendations have yet to be
implemented. Without the effective tool of
conditionality, there is insufficient domestic
or European pressure to convince them to
do so, and no easy alternative tools to use to
force compliance anyway.
Subsidiarity is a useful tool for
examining the lack of success in Roma
inclusion as well. Due to the European
Union’s reluctance to become involved in
policy areas it sees as better dealt with on
a national or local level, the responsibility
for pushing reform in these areas falls
to member-states. These governments
in turn often push responsibility to the
regional or local level. Both areas discussed
in this paper’s case studies--education
and social welfare--fall into the realm of
member-state competencies45. This allows
pre-established systems, such as school
segregation or rampant racial discrimination
in employment to continue to exist absent
concerted effort for reform.
It is clear that political energy for
reform in the area of Roma inclusion since
accession has come from the European
level, often with NGOs pushing the EU
to implement stronger polici