Shaping democratic standards
from inside the room.from inside the room.

RFD participated in the Council of Europe’s Hack the Hate Democracy Hackathon alongside No Hate Speech Week in Strasbourg.

Across three days, the team worked with participants, mentors and European partners on tools to strengthen Roma participation and representation in Europe’s digital societies. RFD entered the forum not as the subject of a policy discussion, but as a partner designing the response.

During the Hackathon, RFD Program Officer Adrian Tudor spoke directly with Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset. He made the institutional case clear: the New Democratic Pact for Europe will remain incomplete unless around 11.3 million Roma are recognised as a constitutive part of Europe’s democratic future—not consulted at its margins after its architecture has been set.

One conclusion remained consistent: responses to hate, political suppression and democratic backsliding are weaker when the people most affected are invited only after the questions and solutions have already been defined.

The project drew strong interest and produced new relationships, sharper design questions and a clearer route to completion. The hackathon ended; development of the work did not.

RFD convened policymakers, democratic governance experts and Roma practitioners to examine how the European Democracy Shield can move from institutional design to effective implementation.

Democratic resilience must reach the places where democratic systems are most tested. For Europe, that includes the political participation of Roma.

The discussion connected European policy with evidence from the field and established four priorities for implementation:

• Move from symbolic participation to operational influence.
• Connect policy, data and field intelligence more effectively.
• Address political suppression alongside disinformation.
• Recognise Roma as active agents of democratic resilience.

The roundtable brought together Nicolae Ștefănuță, Mensur Haliti, Adela Militaru, Enrica Chiozza, Keara Castaldo, Alexander Hudson, Clémence Longley, Anda Constantin, Akif Kariman and Nicu Dumitru. Their contributions sharpened a shared objective: implementation that is coherent, effective and responsive to democratic conditions across Europe.

RFD President Mensur Haliti participated in the Global Progressive Mobilisation in Barcelona to bring Roma political participation and coalition-building into an international discussion on democratic leadership and anti-authoritarian practice.

Roma are not an electorate to be activated at election time. Roma are political actors in democratic life year-round.

Political engagement with Roma often intensifies during elections and recedes once votes are counted. That transactional pattern weakens participation, trust and the quality of public decisions. Democratic partnership requires Roma to shape policy, public debate and institutional priorities throughout the political cycle.

During the panel “Progressive Leadership I: The Fight for Democracy and the Anti-Authoritarian Toolkit”, Haliti tested the distance between progressive identity and governing practice. He asked how the Šutar Act, security legislation introduced by Slovenia’s progressive government, should be judged when independent human-rights bodies warn that it disproportionately affects Roma. He also questioned whether democratic renewal in Hungary can be left to Péter Magyar rather than built through durable progressive institutions and alternatives.

RFD’s participation did not signal affiliation with a party, ideology or political family. The same non-partisan standard applies whoever governs: democratic claims are measured against institutional behaviour, political pluralism and the conditions under which Roma participate.

The Barcelona exchange positioned coalition-building with Roma as a test of democratic practice: whether participation changes the questions, commitments and institutional conduct that follow.

The University of Bucharest Faculty of Law launched a constitutional analysis of Roma parliamentary representation, developed by legal scholars and co-supported by RFD and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Rule of Law Programme Southeast Europe.

Representation without competition cannot produce democratic accountability.

Romania’s constitutional framework guarantees parliamentary representation for recognised national minorities. For Roma, however, the seat has remained under the control of the same organisation while the legal conditions for alternative candidacies have restricted meaningful competition.

The study examines how signatures, organisational status and eligibility requirements operate together as structural barriers. It places those rules against concerns raised by the Venice Commission and judgments of the European Court of Human Rights on unequal treatment within the minority representation system.

Authored by University of Bucharest legal scholars Elena-Simina Tănăsescu, Lucian Dima and Ionuț Răncilă, the analysis identifies routes towards a system in which guaranteed presence is matched by political pluralism, electoral choice and accountability.

At a moment when Europe is strengthening democratic resilience, this is not a technical exception. Whether Roma can contest representation on fair terms is a test of whether constitutional guarantees function as democratic rights in practice.

RFD contributed to the 21st Meeting of the Council of Europe Dialogue with Roma and Traveller Civil Society under the theme “Learning, Protecting, Innovating Democracy: Roma and Travellers’ Role and Perspectives on the New Democratic Pact for Europe.”

Roma political participation is a test of whether European democracy works under its most demanding conditions.

RFD translated experience from work across Europe into a practical standard: democratic resilience depends on institutions people can rely on, not only values they proclaim.

Evidence from the field showed how stronger democratic conditions can produce tangible results. When procedures are reliable, participation becomes more credible, trust can be rebuilt and democratic institutions become harder to weaken.

The contribution carried knowledge from Roma political participation into the design of the New Democratic Pact for Europe. When democracy works where trust is lowest, it becomes stronger everywhere.

On 20 February 2026, 170 years after the final abolition of Roma slavery in the Romanian principalities, RFD President Mensur Haliti joined the launch of Roma Voices and the declaration of a Second Abolition: the abolition of conditional belonging.

When belonging is conditional for one people, it becomes fragile for everyone.

Roma Voices is a 36-month initiative led by Roma Education Fund Romania with ERIAC Romania and Amphitheatrrom Cultural Association to institutionalise Roma presence in Romanian public life through arts, culture and heritage.

Across Căminul Artei Gallery, Eugen Raportoru’s exhibition “No Longer the Stranger from Within” and the National Theatre I.L. Caragiale, Roma art occupied the centre of Romanian cultural space. The programme made a wider democratic argument: visibility matters when it becomes durable institutional presence.

The initiative is supported by the Swiss Contribution to Romania through the Ministry of Labour, Family, Youth and Social Solidarity, with the institutional commitment of Minister Florin Manole and Ambassador Massimo Baggi.

The milestone builds on sustained work by Roma for Europe, Roma Education Fund, REDI — Roma Entrepreneurship Development Initiative — and Roma for Democracy Romania. One initiative is a beginning; the longer objective is ERIAC fully institutionalised in Romania as lasting cultural infrastructure.

Abolition ended the legal institution of slavery, but not the political logic that decides whose belonging is secure. The Second Abolition names the unfinished work of truth, repair and public power. What strengthens Roma strengthens Europe’s democratic integrity. The old logic ends here.

RFD Program Director Adela Militaru attended the Council of Europe international conference “Shaping Democratic Renewal: Civic Space and the Path to a New Democratic Pact for Europe.”

Where democracy is most tested, civic space determines whether participation can still produce accountability.

The conference brought policymakers, experts and civil society into a shared discussion on protecting civic space as a foundation of democracy and carrying that work into the New Democratic Pact for Europe.

RFD contributed the perspective of the Protect pillar: civic space is not only the freedom to organise. It is the practical capacity to observe elections, document obstruction, correct electoral disinformation, contest public decisions and carry evidence into the institutions responsible for democratic standards.

For Roma, the strength of civic space can be measured between elections. Participation becomes meaningful when institutions remain accessible, documented violations receive a response and public commitments can be tested against what governments do.

The same non-partisan principle applies throughout: RFD protects the conditions of democratic participation and institutional accountability, not the interests of any candidate, party or political family.