Within the huge Roma Integration bill that will likely be passed during this coming plenary session, a small clause will fund teachers' ability
to work with millions of Roma children all across Europe. Someone of very little importance was directly responsible for this the inclusion of this clause. Who was this unsung political hero you might ask....it was this guy. Wait no, it was THIS GUY.
I have gotten to spend a great deal more time with MEP Goncz over the past couple of weeks than I have during the entire semester combined, and that is saying a lot. During our walks to and from various meetings we would quickly discuss her policy stances on Roma integration issues, surveillance and data protection and more generally how she approaches the legislative process. We also talked about the importance of language and wording in laws as many member states will try to find verbal loop holes to get around implementing laws that they do not support.
The system by which the laws are written and voted on in parliament is as follows: an MEP decides they want to create a bill, they write anywhere from 1 to 100 or more clauses regarding the nature of the law. In a law pertaining to border security for instance a clause may say: "all member states regardless of status as a European border state should have to pay equal taxes for border security." That bill is then sent to all of the parties, The Greens, The Christian Democrats, The Social Democrats etc; each member who is interested in the bill edits it and send its it to a party "raporter" who synthesizes the suggestions of her party into a new bill. Then all of those synthesized party bills get sent back to the original parliamentarian's office who consolidates all of the various parties' suggestions into one bill. Then all of the raporters from each concerned party meet for what is called a shadows meeting where the various MEPs and their assistants debate the language of the bill to the degree of "The bill says 'Roma children are challenged' and I really feel its important that we say 'experience challenges.'" Many of these semantic arguments are started and unfortunately, about one fourth of the time the solution is to throw out the clause entirely if a consensus on verbiage cannot be reached.
The shadow rapporteurs of the crucially important Roma Integration bill had reached this sort of semantic impasse on Monday in regards to a pivotal clause of the bill, one introduced by Kinga, which allowed for additional funding and support to be extended to schools with heavy Roma populations. The MEPs and their assistants could not agree on how to say that the teachers needed additional funding and training without belittling the teachers, or casting the Romani children as inferior to their peers. I had decided to accompany Ballazs and Kinga to the meeting just to watch them in action and follow through with a bill I have watched progress throughout the semester. As this debate on how the clause should be arranged raged on for ten minutes, I started scribbling out ideas on the margin of my copy of the bill until Kinga finally glanced over and without warning said. "Everyone stop" since she is usually the highest ranking MEP in the room...everyone stopped and she said, "having looked around the room, I see only one native English speaker, our American intern. Austin, how would you suggest we word the clause." In a theatrical style worth of a twilight film, all the eyes in the room lifted from their Iphones, and looked right at me.
First I froze, then I asked the Spanish MEP who had spoken last what her suggestion was, then with no filter said "that won't do." Holy snap...did I just tell an MEP her idea "wouldn't do?" Okay, salvage time, look at your paper, and read your idea. I looked down, read my paragraph and waited for a very long second. All the people stopped, look at each other and then the Spanish MEP said well that's perfect, motion to approve.
I understand here in this very last week why all of these people continue their work despite the mind numbing bureaucracy involved, not to mention the ridicule the European Parliament receives on a regular basis. The feeling I had when they adopted that clause was that in some small way I had made a difference in lives of these kids. Maybe the law will only have sixty percent of the desired effectiveness, maybe some administrators will miss-use the funds; but maybe a couple of kids in a classroom in Hungary will get the chance they need to expand their minds and benefit from an education. Granted that is an idealistic idea, but its one that I do believe in.
Without the EP Germany or Belgium might introduce Roma inclusion acts to help this severely under-served population, Hungary and Romania however would likely not. That to me is the ideal role of the EP, to serve and protect the minorities of Europe and prevent groups of people from being disenfranchised, discriminated against or endangered. It is a massive but crucial role to play. I truly hope that with the coming elections the populist tide which has risen all over Europe will not sweep away the good that has been done by the EP thus far.
I understand here in this very last week why all of these people continue their work despite the mind numbing bureaucracy involved, not to mention the ridicule the European Parliament receives on a regular basis. The feeling I had when they adopted that clause was that in some small way I had made a difference in lives of these kids. Maybe the law will only have sixty percent of the desired effectiveness, maybe some administrators will miss-use the funds; but maybe a couple of kids in a classroom in Hungary will get the chance they need to expand their minds and benefit from an education. Granted that is an idealistic idea, but its one that I do believe in.
Without the EP Germany or Belgium might introduce Roma inclusion acts to help this severely under-served population, Hungary and Romania however would likely not. That to me is the ideal role of the EP, to serve and protect the minorities of Europe and prevent groups of people from being disenfranchised, discriminated against or endangered. It is a massive but crucial role to play. I truly hope that with the coming elections the populist tide which has risen all over Europe will not sweep away the good that has been done by the EP thus far.
