In the past eight years, Macedonia has done a lot for the Roma community, however more efforts need to be made in a bid to fully include them in the society.

This is one of the conclusions reached at Tuesday's conference "IPA Funds for Roma" and the 8th Roma Economic Forum, organized by the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation, the Municipality of Suto Orizari and the Roma Business Information Center.

The regional conference aims at increasing the socio-economic inclusion of Roma people in the country and assessing the opportunities to generate finances for that purpose from the IPA funds from 2014 to 2020.

"Macedonia has made a breakthrough with the fact that the Roma are part of the country's constitution by being recognized as a community enjoying the same rights as other citizens. Macedonia has also enacted the Decade of Roma Inclusion initiative that envisages activities supported by the national budget and funds approved for the country," Deputy PM for European Affairs Fatmir Besimi said in his opening speech.

Several projects important for the Roma community have been endorsed through IPA funds in Macedonia so far, including the project supporting the implementation of the 2008 IPA Roma Strategy, institutions in implementing policies of great importance for minority communities, a campaign for support of Roma women, etc, stated Besimi.

"There are certain projects that have been backed by the Macedonian budget, such as the inclusion of Roma children in public kindergartens, scholarships for high school and university students, opening of information centers in Roma communities, amongst others" the Deputy PM added.

Robert Liddell, Charge d'affaires of the EU Delegation, said that Roma people were discriminated in Europe and beyond facing social exclusion, high unemployment rate, unsatisfactory access to health insurance with 90% of Roma living on the brink of poverty...

"We are attempting to do more for the Roma people. IPA funds are only a small segment of the picture... New strategies for Roma need to be developed and better goals to be defined in order Roma issues to be addressed successfully," noted Liddell.

Serbian MP Srdjan Sajn pointed out that there were basically no Roma representatives in the European institutions.

"The assemblies in Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Romania have one Roma representative each, there is only one Roma member of the European Parliament, but the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the Council of Europe have none. Thus there is no one to represent the interests of the Roma community in Europe and no one to control the huge amounts of money that need to be set aside for Roma people," said Sajn.