Coordination at national level

• Author: Chiara Favilli
• Pages: 63-63

63

9COORDINATION AT NATIONAL LEVEL

The Ministry of Labour and Social Policies and the Department for Equal Opportunities

share responsibility for coordinating equal treatment issues in the fields covered by the

directives.

A national anti-racism action plan was presented by the Ministry of Labour and Social

Policies during the meeting that the Government held on 7 August 2015. Several press

releases were made available regarding this presentation, but no further information has

been given about it subsequently. The official document of the plan remains unavailable

on the UNAR website, and it is not on the Ministry of Labour website either. It could not

even be found in a search of the Official Journal and legal databases. Up to the time of

drafting this report, no official document has been available except for the press release

for the Government’s meeting at which the strategy was presented. Following a request

made directly to UNAR, copies of the plan and of the related decree were forwarded to a

mailing list of migration lawyers. However, there is no official record of the plan. Even more

seriously, there is no record of its effective implementation. The restructuring of UNAR (the

change of director and the majority of its staff) may be one of the reasons for the plan not

being implemented and/or for information about it not being disseminated. Another reason

might be the absence in Government of any ministerial office with responsibility for

integration affairs whereas, thanks to the previous existence of such an arrangement, the

national Roma strategy was adopted and the drafting of the Anti-Racism Action Plan was

begun. It seems that the Government lacks a minister who is willing and able to act in the

field of anti-racism, with the paradoxical situation that the only relevant governmental

office is UNAR, the equality body, which is supposed to be independent.

There is a certain uneasiness in commenting on a document whose nature and legal effects

are so uncertain, especially in the absence of any practical impact. Therefore, as far as we

are concerned, the plan has been formally adopted, yet without having any effectiveness.

This is equivalent to non-adoption, and during the years following its adoption no significant

step has been taken to change this situation of inactivity. The situation has not changed

during 2019.