Coordination at national level

• Author: Favilli, Chiara
• Pages: 67-67

67

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 2018, despite the appointment of the new director.