European Roma Grassroots Organisations (ERGO) Network

- According to the Fundamental Rights Agency, 33% of Roma in Europe live without indoor toilet, 25% with damp/rot, 82% in overcrowded housing, and 24% experience discrimination in access to housing. - Housing markets are racialised, with antigypsyism shaping access to rental, ownership, and public housing. Discrimination by landlords and authorities limits effectiveness of supply-side measures.

The Housing Simplification Package must ensure that it benefits those facing the most exclusion, such as racialised communities including the Roma, not only whether it lowers costs for property developers. The latest data from the Fundamental Rights Agency show the scale of Roma housing deprivation: 47% live in housing deprivation, 83% in overcrowded households, and 17% lack tap water indoors; 35% report…

Only 54% of Roma aged 2064 are in paid work (FRA data) compared with 75% of the general population; only 38% of Roma women are in paid work, compared with 69% of men. 47% of young Roma are NEET, five times the general-population rate (9%). Most concerningly, 36% report ethnic discrimination when looking for work and 22% in the workplace.

ERGO Network welcomes the European Commissions initiative on fair labour mobility, but stresses that, for Roma and other racialised and impoverished workers, mobility too often doesn't mean opportunity, but exposure to discrimination, exploitation, and severe rights violations.

Only 43% of Europes Roma are in paid work, and most of those are trapped in precarious, low-paid, low-prestige, and low-skilled jobs. A Job Quality Roadmap has the potential to serve as a transformative tool for Roma inclusion and equality, but only if it moves beyond the current framing, which only prioritises competitiveness and labour market needs.

ERGO Network welcomes the Directive on adequate minimum wages in the EU as a much-needed & long-awaited step to guarantee quality of work & employment + to ensure that jobs are an actual route out of poverty. Lack of support & early intervention means that many Roma, coming from a background of poverty & low skills, are only able to access precarious, low-paid jobs.

• We welcome that the proposal clearly mentions the EU Roma Strategic in the Explanatory Memorandum, though not in the Decision itself. We regret that young Roma are otherwise not mentioned anywhere in the text, nor are ethnic minorities a key priority group. This is a missed opportunity, as 80% of Roma live below the poverty line, while two-thirds of them are under 30.