EUROPE FOR CITIZENS PROGRAMME

[Stoimen]

On 28 May 2013 the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of the European Commission published on internet the list of Projects Granted.

In total 26 projects will receive a grant from the Europe For Citizens Programme; none of these 26 projects deals with Roma and Sinti! Our Face the Music project, grant application submitted on 31 January, has been rejected, in spite of the warm welcome we received in Brussels in 2012.

See for more information the files and texts below.

projects_granted_and_reserve_list.pdf

Letter to the Head of Unit of the EACEA, sent by e-mail on the evening of 28 May:

Grant%20decision.doc

More detailed information will follow. We suppose that World Artists Initiative "Khetanes" will soon receive an individual message from Brussels.

[Stoimen]

MAIL SENT TO HEAD OF UNIT, PHILIPPE COVA, ON 24 JUNE 2013, cc to other European Commission officials:

Dear Mr Philippe Cova,

 

Thank you for your e-mail of Friday, 21 June 2013, regarding our project proposal "Face the Music"(541002-EFC-1-2013-1-NL-EFC-CSP).

 

Indeed we received the letter by Mrs Pérez de Albéniz from 10 June 2013 with the details or our scoring, on the basis of the double analysis carried out by external independent experts.

 

I must confess that I was a little surprised to learn that you cooperate with external experts, as I wrongly understood from a letter by Mr Martin Selmayr, July 2010, that the Reding Cabinet never does (see attachment and further correspondence on this matter).

 

This was at the occasion of my offering assistance to the Cabinet as a former MEP, focusing on Roma issues, who worked since 1995 as a writer and researcher in and on the European Roma community. After my leaving the European Parliament in 2009, I believed that I could pay a precious contribution to the work of the Commission by combating tokenism and introducing strongly motivated and experienced Roma to Brussels. Thanks to all my travelling, my network was huge and its potency promising.

 

When my offer as a volunteer was not accepted, I initiated World Artists Initiative "Khetanes", a think tank of Romani artists and scholars from the entire world, but with a focus on Europe. I dare stating that most of the Roma elite is nowadays involved in Khetanes. When you visit our website (www.khetanes.org), you will come across the names of all prominent scholars that the Commission regularly invites as speakers, e.g. Dr. Ian Hancock.

 

This was also the case in April 2012, when a.o. Juan de Dios Ramírez Heredia, Paco Suarez, Santino Spinelli, Ida Kelarova, Zoran Tairovic and the undersigned were invited by DG Culture. In this context Paco Suarez, director of the European Romani Symphonic Orchestra (ERSO), was emphatically advised to apply for the cultural ambassadorship for his international orchestra, famous for its performances of classic music by Dvorak, Brahms, Bartok, Albéniz and many more, all inspired by Roma composers. The other Khetanes members, invited to Brussels, were equally encouraged to apply for grants.

 

We are artists, scholars, human rights activists. Our skills are in our actions and works of creativity and study, rather than in the description of what we do, often at a fulltime or more than fulltime basis. Our project scored 72,25 out of 100. How come?

 

I checked and give 2 concrete examples. In the category "Relevance to the objectives of the Programme", we scored 18,75 out of 25. From the 17 characteristics under E.1, we marked 13. We could have easily marked 17 out of 17, if we would have marked e.g. "European Year of Volunteers"(2011) and "European Year of Active Ageing" (2012). Starting our project in 2013, we did not mark these two passed years and thus – accidentally- had a lower score. Is that fair? We could also easily have marked that we create a sense of ownership, but found this characteristic rather vague.

 

Second example: the impact of our project scored 9,75 out of 15. Its visibility 9 out of 15. The geographical impact 6 out of 10.

Yet, we informed you that there will be over 5000 people on the spot (E.3) and that participants come from 9 different countries, Romania, Bulgaria, Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Finland, Czech Republic and Italy. If we include the candidate-countries, this number would have been even higher.

Publications, DVD/CD-Rom and website would prolong and deepen the impact among the many thousands of students of all universities involved.

 

In spite of double checking by your external experts, the scores are not clear. What we, however, regret even more is the complete absence of a single Roma NGO among the applicants who saw their projects being granted. We understand that the number of granted projects, 26 or 4,5 %, is relatively low, but want to remind you of the fact that Commissioner Reding's portfolio is the main one for Roma issues and that the Europe for Citizens Programme enables applicants to directly focus on racism and fundamental rights.

 

I want to thank you for your offer to fix a meeting at your office in the light of better knowing your actions in 2014. Unfortunately I cannot accept. After almost 18 years of professional activism, 9 years as a writer/researcher, 5 years as a MEP and 3,5 years as a volunteer and networker, my hope on a change for the better in the short term has vanished. I don't know what to say anymore to the thousands of Roma who believed I could open a door that remained closed to them. That is why I stepped back as president of Artists' Initiative and gave up our official status.

 

I am particularly sorry about the loss of inspired and true enthusiasm among so many volunteers. Without overestimating ourselves, I dare to claim that Europe needs us.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Els de Groen

 

 

 

[Nadara Gypsy Band]

Dear Als,

I think also that is not a so terrible we lost the first grant but it can be lot of other grants in the futut. Perhaps we have also to think about a better project :-) to find other idea but not give up, it would be pity. Lot of people put I think hope in this organisation and after first war we give up? no of course not. With Nadara we made lot of projects for many years without grants. After we get quite every year, smaller than what we hope but we could make cultural exchanges and other activities for promotion of roma culture keep your energy and your volonty!

All the best to everybody :-)

[Stoimen]

Dear Alexandra,

The problem is that this was not our first grant application. The problem is grant applications by Roma and pro Roma organizations have little chance. For two years we try to get support from foundations/funds/bodies that have a rather bureaucratic and negative approach of Roma. Maybe it is better to continue in full independance, with full pride and self-confidence.

Els