Focus ROMI.HR

ECRI organizes monitoring work in five-year cycles, covering various countries per year. Not later than two years after each report's publication, ECRI communicates with the relevant government about the specific recommendations for priority follow-up. The organization gathers relevant information and draws conclusions on how its recommendations have been followed up. These conclusions only focus on temporary follow-up recommendations and do not provide a comprehensive analysis of all developments in the fight against racism and intolerance in the State concerned.

In 2020, ECRI issued its report on Spain, where it focused on two main aspects:

Firstly, it was recommended in the last report of ECRI that Spain should take urgent steps to establish an independent equality body or ensure that the Council of Elimination of Racial and Ethnic Discrimination (CERED) is made independent in Spain and provided with the competencies and powers. ECRI has been informed that work is underway to improve the quality of a draft Act on Equality of Treatment and against all Form of Discrimination, which would serve as a basis for creating an independent equality body with sufficient human and budgetary resources. The preparation of this act has been interrupted by two parliamentary elections within a year in 2019, as well as by difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. ECRI believes that the Council of Elimination of Racial and Ethnic Discrimination (CERED) is still not independent of the Government, and its staffing and budget remain limited. At present, it can only focus its activities on assistance to victims and on research.

Consequently, ECRI considers that in the present state of affairs, its recommendation has not yet been implemented.

Secondly, the European Commission for the Rights of the Child (ECRI) has reiterated its recommendation from its fourth report for Spain to increase the share of Roma children completing compulsory schooling. The Spanish National Roma Integration Strategy 2012-2020 and Operational Plan for 2018-2020 have been implemented, but no new statistical data on Roma children completing compulsory schooling is available since the fifth report. ECRI welcomes the implementation of projects by civil society actors, such as educational support in autonomous regions. The coalition agreement of the current Government of Spain includes an objective to end segregation of Roma in schools and prevent pupils from leaving compulsory schooling before completing it, but no concrete proposals or funding are available at the moment.

As a consequence, ECRI considers that its recommendation has not been implemented.