If I should say something about myself,
I´d probably divide it into some categories.
One of the categories is admittedly the most interesting for you.
That is the Romani topic.
The second one, which is very related, is a poverty.
Those topics are linked together, of course, not accidentally.
And the third one is even wider category, the human rights.
But it is also connected naturally with another contiguous topics
such as community development or development of regions in general etc.
I´ve lived almost my whole life in Košice,
and in the various parts of Košice,
so I had an opportunity to meet Roma people, of course.
Actually, there was one period of time, when we lived on Terasa, they were our neighbors.
And after 1989, when I was helping
in several non-governmental activities,
or even the political, for example for the Democratic party,
I was traveling around the whole region, Eastern Slovak region, in that time.
Later mostly around the Košice region.
And simply it was impossible to get around, not to see and to be deaf and blind.
Roma people, as a minority that is significantly represented
right in the Eastern Slovakia, also in Košice region,
they were present everywhere on those trips, contacts,
in relations, in interviews, in meetings.
More or less, of course.
And the amazement, as usual,
in the beginning is mostly from the settlements,
from those poor settlements,
so after all, the one has to take some kind of an attitude.
And the attitude could be either ignorant, that he stops noticing it
and he withdraws into his own world and does his own thing,
Or he doesn't ignore it and then he has to be active somehow.
The activity, I begun to manifest was
when I came up with my very first project in 1998,
which was to support the activation of Roma before the municipal elections.
Those were the municipal elections that were canceled and then again in an autumn.
My ambition was to attempt on the place they lived And I tried where they lived
just so they weren´t out of the game and if at least a little bit possible,
they tried to pursue themselves in the municipal elections as well.
Somewhere we succeeded more, somewhere less.
But it wasn´t in vain at all,
because enough of the candidates for deputies
were activated, including those on Luník IX.
And including then the first Roma mayor of Luník IX.
But it was mainly in the villages.
Luník IX. was a specific place, it is a city.
So I started getting to know Roma personally and staying with them.
And it hasn´t stopped since, if I can put it that way.
But if a person wanted to be somehow legitimate in it
and not just an enthusiast, like a newcomer,
then it was also necessary to get some kind of a professional education in it.
And that´s why that social work.
And that´s why many various conferences, workshops.
Such courses, such trainings, such visits, whatever.
It went so far that through various non-governmental organizations,
where the Center for Sustainable Development probably played the biggest role at the time,
as the strongest in eastern Slovakia in this subject,
I was there when we founded community centers,
how we came up with many micro projects for them.
And a microloan schemes as well.
And also supportive within the framework of improving
their living conditions or actions, for example housing.
I'll probably skip a lot of events now.
It went so far that I even became the envoy.
Not as a party candidate, I point that out.
I didn't pursue that party line.
So literally like neutral.
And even after I finished that position
I didn't let it go, I didn't close the door behind me,
but I continue to work on that topic.
I work in it no longer through some state or self-governing institutions,
but through the non-governmental sector or just individually.
I am shocked how in those basic characteristics
and the attributes of poverty, there are many people who work professionally
with their clients who are poor and come from poverty.
There, I mainly try, if possible,
through the Bridges from Poverty concept
to promote those basic qualities and characteristics among those people.
But also among the clients themselves.
And this happens through various projects and various activities.
We train or I train, it depends
people who are either from the state administration, such as employment offices.
A typical ideal sample.
Or the municipality and the mayor.
Employees of municipal offices, deputies and so on.
There are either the separate NGOs
or there are the clients themselves.
Those poor people themselves.
And various mixes in between.
So that´s about the poverty.
And now, as I mentioned, the third topic, the human rights.
So either they are specific activities, like recently
it was help in creating the Museum of Victims of Communism in Košice.
Or somewhere in the east of Slovakia in Sobrance, there are memorials
and we were collecting data about the refugees who died on our borders.
Refugees from Ukraine to Slovakia.
Or Fero Guldan´s exhibitions "Exodus".
And we rotate those exhibitions around Slovakia, there were already more than seventy of them.
Now it even went to Budapest last week, because they were interested in it as well.
Then, there are the books about these topics.
Spiš exodus in the 20th century, Human rights and freedoms in Spiš in the past etc.
So, human rights activities in the broadest sense of the word.
The latest will be hold on September 9,
on the occasion of the Holocaust in Slovakia, the Jewish Holocaust,
an event organized by Jožko Klement from Zvolen.
In more than 80 cities at the same time, at once, it will be the remembrance of it.
So various such small events.
But also a lot of the bigger, specific ones.
And of course, all of this is related, it mixes together.
So a person then cooperates
either with the Office of the Public Defender of Rights,
or with the various state ones,
such as the Office of the Plenipotentiary for this, for that
with a various minority organizations, some of them are foreign,
or with the Institute of the Memory of the Nation,
or the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes,
or with this museum, that museum.
Fun fact.
It seemed to me that Slovakia, or the previous states, Czechoslovakia,
were quite indifferent despite the fact that they claim human rights.
And of course they are proud of it.
So, for example, during that entire period, even after 1989,
they could not get even the basic files of our people taken to the gulags
from the Russian archives of the KGB.
So one of those projects was about that, for example.
And so, through the activity of such small people,
non-professionals like me,
we managed to get more than thirty-four thousand.
To get, to bring here the scanned files of people,
at that time, actually, citizens of Czechoslovakia, since we were Czechoslovakia.
So a lot of similar issues.
And we keep going in this.
I am currently collaborating on projects
through the Implementation Agency of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs
regarding community centers and their use.
I'm just thinking about how to come up with something
to make their support sustainable.
Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Government of the Slovak Republic for Roma communities
It was quite a hurried period.
Because we quickly agreed that I would go to that office there.
And I joined there very quickly, almost overnight.
It was in the summer, when Iveta Radičová's government was already underway.
But the office was abandoned.
The previous representative was not there,
and things have been stagnant for several months.
So it was necessary to restart the whole thing somehow.
And markedly so much that
we had to rewrite all the basic documents of that office.
It´s whole statute.
And start in such a way as to eliminate
the tensions and various conflicts that were there.
The financial police visited there quite often.
And an audits took place.
So it was necessary to put the whole thing in order.
And the second thing is that we were not there for a very long time,
because then there were early elections.
But during that period we managed to restart it, first of all.
The second of all, at that time a core topic was
the so-called Local strategies of a comprehensive approach.
And those local strategies, which were the first major variant of
an attempt to comprehensively solve problems in Roma settlements and dwellings,
were more or less blocked, or the money had already been gone.
That office does not have an executive power.
It is only an advisory and coordinating establishment.
It does not have a legal personality.
We couldn´t even buy a table-water.
We didn't have money for that, everything had to be requested and so on.
Those Local Strategies were approved, but they did not really work
because they were divided between six operational programs.
And the office as a coordinator could only beg, negotiate and somehow push.
But since I was not a politician and I was not a member
of any coalition council meetings, it was not quite so simple.
Because once a representative of the Ministry
from his Implementation Agency tells you,
but they are responsible for it and it is within their competence
and you don't have much to talk to him about it,
then simply if he doesn't feel like it,
he will mess with you and delay and prolong.
So this had to be unblocked at the beginning.
That was one big part of the agenda.
This was basically achieved, but of course with the difficulties,
that were already defined in how the whole thing was set up.
And it wasn´t set up effectively.
But well, what could be done was done.
And the second such big thing was
that a decision was made within the EU, to which Slovakia also joined.
After all, all countries did.
That each of them will prepare a strategic document
Integration of Roma in their own country.
It was necessary to make that strategy, but there was no money, no conditions, nothing.
So it was necessary to negotiate, to look for partners.
After all, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) helped.
The world bank and many others.
Coordinating advisory establishment, you know.
So none of your own resources
and you need to get a budget and so on.
Who would be willing?
There are a thousand other important things at every resort, right?
But that strategy was successful.
It was even evaluated
once as the most successful and once together with Spain.
And those were international conferences, or directly Brussels.
So it turned out well.
The concept was also excellent.
It was made in such a way that the first part was fixed, ideological.
And then the second one.
That is the one that can be changed.
Those were the action plans themselves.
That style was good and it became a kind of a pattern.
Plus, the principles, that were defined there
were also taken over by the other countries.
Unfortunately, as it usually happens, many of them were used or argued,
and it doesn't matter whether at the European level or here,
dogmatically and thus not very happily, appropriately.
A typical example is the so-called 3D principles.
This is a typical example of bureaucracy misunderstanding,
incompetence, formalism and so on.
It lasts up to the present days.
The strategy was until 2020.
Now a new one is being prepared.
Which, in turn, seems not very effective to me,
because the first part is already done.
Those action plans should be done, that's where it's interesting in the field.
This is what life is and where it changes.
But what is done now is again something like a general part,
and there are no action plans yet, well, we'll see.
And what we are still up to during that short period,
which was about a year and a half, less than two years,
early elections were already held in March.
And when I joined sometime in July 2010
and March 2012, or even earlier,
the fall of the government had already been voted on
and it had only been prolonging for half a year.
So, for about a year and a half, we could and we did something there.
But well, we did the positive examples from the field,
also the illegal settlements and other things.
We´ve started an information system for the entire office,
which, of course, was not used at the end of the day.
But our priority was a field-work.
That's exactly the field community work and likewise.
I think those extreme opinions like nothing has been done at all,
or very much has been done, in the whole topic in general,
are inappropriate, wrong, bad.
Because many good things has been done in the entire period after 1989.
Of course, more could be done, better, or more efficiently.
Of course.
But once on some occasion I said,
but look, after 1989 the standardized codified Romani language,
Roma recognized as an equal nationality,
The formation of various cultural institutions,
Romano nevo ľil as well ,after all.
Minority education.
Many Roma are asserting themselves in public life.
Unlike other states, we have entire programs that are successful.
Not just projects.
For example an assistant, or community centers and so on.
These are different things that are not even found elsewhere.
So it´s not that little at all.
We can discuss the quality though.
We can discuss whatever.
But again, be careful, there is something real here.
And now, let´s be very critical, come and tell me
what has been achieved in the field of transport, for example.
For thirty years, one highway is being built and it has not been finished yet.
Between the two biggest cities.
Or what about the environment?
Let's see which forests we haven't had time to cut down and so on.
Or in the culture?
If there is any culture here, then despite the Ministry of Culture.
Or what about education?
The fortieth attempt at some kind of reform and the further the worse.
After all, it is probably time to finally repeat
the 250-year-old Teresian reform of Maria Theresa.
After all, people need to be taught to read, write and count.
And probably it's best to start from the colleges.
So that we have at least some certainty.
Or what about the economy?
One moment, please.
This is being thrown around in such a way that we never know
if the GDP will still go up, down or around or how.
Or whether the cars will go one way or another.
Or what about the area of justice, judiciary?
It's just one big disaster.
Such that if we were to draw the judges straight away,
we couldn't get any worse.
After all, someone decent would get there, wouldn't they?
Or what about the Interior department?
Or when we consider any other area,
compared to this Roma issue, I am concerned
that we will find that even less has been achieved.
But where does the money usually go?
Where almost nothing is achieved.
So the blanket accusations that nothing has been achieved, all is bad and so on,
well, I'd be careful, that's not true.
Of course, the whole situation,
especially of the poor, miserable people, is simply still poor and miserable.
But that is already a question of generational poverty,
which cannot be changed so quickly.
Because the basic characteristics and properties are such
that generational shifts are needed for this.
And the catastrophic examples would be seen
if nothing was being done there at all.
Simply, as one friend of mine once said when this state was founded,
that the first four thousand years will be the hardest
So you just have to hold on, keep going and don't be discouraged.
And most of all to control those
who blatantly parasitize on it, steal et cetera.
So the whole topic is opened.
There are positive and negative examples.
I think we know what needs to be done, we've known that for a long time.
The only problem is how.
And my opinion is that simply complex.
But properly.
Not that I'm going to overdo it with Lunik IX. so that it can be clearly seen.
When we made the Comprehensive Concept for the Development of Luník IX, we found out
we found out that we would need about 50-60 steps
to move and improve things there.
And every step is at least one decent project.
But for so many projects, how many open calls,
or national projects, or interventions would there be?
And for what period?
When we went to the respective Implementation Agencies, they told us
that this quarter of your requirements
in those measures and proposals, activities and projects,
that was already behind us, that was already being done, it will not be this quarter anymore.
This one is being prepared.
The third quarter, so this one is being implemented, try to get involved.
The last quarter, that will probably be planned.
Be careful and be prepared.
But when a restart or a complex solution works like this,
it is simply for an infinite time.
That´s never going to be done.
Because always "ad hoc".
And then in practice it looks like the project
is first for some workers in the auxiliary professions.
And when the project ends, then maybe there will be a call
for community centers, where those workers should be,
but are no longer there, because the project has ended already.
And so on.
Plus another bad feature of ours is
that it's all done campaign-like.
And it mainly falls on those municipalities.
That those mayors, in an effort to have some result, grab whatever is available.
And then either everyone repairs the roofs, whether they need to or not.
Everyone is doing projects for civil services, because now there is such a call.
Then everyone wants to start a social company,
because now there is a campaign for social companies.
Whether it is necessary or not.
And so on and always like a trained monkeys,
with a well-cultivated conditioned reflex.
rather like Pavlov's dogs, they flock and do
what just give them the money.
As usual.
Do I need a transitional housing at Luník IX or not?
But when there is a call for that and no other,
then I go to build temporary housing.
Even though it is clear that there is no chance of transitory living there,
when there is such a demand that as soon as anything transitory is built,
it will be so clogged and overstocked,
that there will be no transitivity or movement.
They would fight tooth and nail for their own housing.
Well, but can we blame the mayor?
After all, when there is such a possibility, he seizes the opportunity.
I really believe that a real meaningful comprehensive approach
should already be implemented in this new programming period.
Because in the previous one, it was the Local Strategies,
it was dysfunctional there because the individual activities
were divided among six operational programs,
each of which had its own rules, different time settings and so on.
So the applicant, which is mostly the municipality, cannot prosecute it,
cannot guard it, cannot succeed everywhere.
So, in the end, there will be two successful projects,
which by no chance cannot be a comprehensive solution
for the entire locality, community, village.
In this ending programming period,
there was another version of this Comprehensive Approach.
The so-called "take away" packages, which were not good,
because first of all they were directively invented from above
and they were dictated what should be done.
Also directively selected municipalities
according to a so far unjustified formula, an unknown key.
And again, the Atlas of Roma communities was used with misunderstanding.
In other words, incompetence after incompetence.
As a result, some municipalities got away from it,
some wanted changes immediately, many times it had to be repaired and changed.
So again, something, just not complex.
Different chaos with different results.
Of course, somewhere better, somewhere worse.
So, in this programming period,
which begins for the years 2021-2027,
it could really be the case that the municipality has processed
the entire comprehensive approach of the solution.
And all that, which is, of course, professionally prepared,
consulted, assessed, approved,
it all forms one project.
One and not fifty, sixty at different times.
And that one project is being implemented
and is well timed in a meaningfully set.
Those activities.
It makes sense and the result is that the whole community,
the whole locality, the whole village is actually restarted.
It is set decently, properly.
And then it just needs to be maintained or updated
and developed in proportion to how life brings changes.
But of course, it's not the end of the world yet.
But it is already something completely different
from such "ad hoc" campaign appeals based on
what the state offers or what can be implemented through funds right now.
In other words, how to spend money.
Because the word spending is quite frequent and is especially at the end
of those programming periods such a main idol.
It's not even about what we do anymore, but how much money we spend.
We don't spend much.
Of course, in that complexity, one thing pops up somewhere, another somewhere else.
But every community is different.
So every project and approach is different.
And that, in turn, is an advantage.
Because it's not possible to fit everything
into a linked call somewhere from Bratislava or Brussels.
People have to do that from where they live.
And some will know it better, some worse.
But as soon as it works out well for someone of them,
it will be a super good example that will attract the others as well.
Who might be afraid, or they won't have the expertise and so on.
But those are already technical and procedural-organizational things,
which have a solution.
You just have to be willing to go for it.
These are the four main areas that come from
the period of the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015.
What was done in several countries here in Central, Eastern,
but later also in Western Europe.
And it was housing, health, employment and education.
Those four areas are then transmitted everywhere.
Also into those strategies.
The question of what is the most important does not make much sense.
Of that, of those four.
Because, when we realize that if a person is educated,
he has a better perspective to get a job, because he has a higher qualification.
But if he is employed, he has an income.
So he has a better chance of getting a good housing.
But if he stays in a safe place, he has a chance to protect his health.
And just be healthier.
But if he is healthy, he still has what it takes
to go to school and be able to get an education.
And we are back to education, so the circle has closed.
In other words, whatever you do,
you indirectly help the other three areas as well.
So it doesn't really matter what you do.
But what you do concretely in life,
you will prefer what is the most acute in that particular village.
And you´ll choose this area.
What I mean by that is that when there is jaundice somewhere or people are sick,
you probably won't make them go to retraining courses, because they are ill.
So you probably have to prioritize a health.
But when they live somewhere disastrously and because of that they can't do anything
and they are also sick, well, housing has to be solved first.
So it's not like anything, anywhere and anyway.
But just sensitively according to the conditions.
But that complexity means that it's all connected,
so at the end of the day, you end up solving everything anyway.
And a lot of other things, of course.
Once in a while, the topic of the office's competences comes up.
How to strengthen it or in which direction.
And whether to put it under one ministry or another.
And whether to put him under that minister or prime minister or so.
Tak ten môj názor je,
So my opinion is that the office should remain advisory and coordinating only.
It should not be pushed into the executive.
And I strongly doubt the need to strengthen his competences.
For a very simple reason.
And indeed from the point that if it had greater competences,
even such that it might be a ministry,
because there are such a sugestions,
to join the executive,
which means greater competence, to have more power, money and so on.
In that case, some section, department, or whatever it would be called organizationally,
would be created at that office,
for an education, or for housing, simply for individual areas,
for culture and so on.
In other words, that office would become a small government.
And it would also have like the small ministries under it.
And all that so-called Romai.
And those proper ministries and everything else
would be very happy to get rid of everything
related to the Roma topic and the Roma people.
And they would throw it at that office.
After all, they do it and they are still trying to do it.
They just can't quite do it, because that office doesn't have the competence.
And if there was a tiny little possibility, they would do it already.
So the result would be
that obviously there would still be little money.
There would still be more demand.
So dissatisfaction with that office as well.
And the result in the field and in life
that the distance between the majority and the Roma minority increased even more.
Because you want something, or do you have a problem?
Well, you have an office there, go and deal with it there.
And we are here and you are there.
This is really dangerous.
It is rather the opposite.
After all, the existence of that office is one of the biggest examples
of temporary compensatory measures in practice
Is there a better example? No, there´s not.
This office was created historically because we joined the EU
and we had such and such problems.
So it was not created thanks to our enlightened wisdom.
Not a chance.
The goal should be to eliminate those inequalities,
and therefore, until then, the office has meaning.
In other words:
As soon as possible, let that office disappear,
so that it does not have the meaning of its existence.
So not his strengthening.
But are we solving the problem with settlements and housing?
Are they residents, are they citizens or not?
There is a ministry of transport, construction, I don't know what.
So why it doesn´t solve it?
Why should any office, which does not have the competence,
executive power, bother with this.
And that's where those people complain.
And he's the poor guy who can't solve it.
And it costs unnecessary money.
And if it doesn´t exist, then who would solve it?
Well, the ministry probably couldn't get away with it so easy.
So just the opposite.
Let that office be a smart, professional coordinator and adviser.
If only.
But the function and the responsibility and so, let it be normal,
because we are a civil state.
After all, we are building a civil society. Or not?
Sometimes I don't know.
But we should, well I wish.
In that case, we have a legitimate government
and there are legitimate institutions and mechanisms for that.
To increase its expertise in the direction of coordination and advisory.
And if only that office didn't have to exist.