About This Initiative2006 Activities
In 2006, EUMAP completed its work on a monitoring report that examined the rights of people with intellectual disabilities in 12 countries, and presented another report on the state of television broadcasting in 20 European countries. The program also initiated a new monitoring exercise looking at equal access to quality education for Roma in nine European states, and a series of background reports on the situation of Muslims in seven European countries.
The findings of EUMAP’s 20-country broadcasting report, Television Across Europe: Regulation, Policy, and Independence, prompted the program to collaborate with OSI’s Media Program in conducting a campaign to make the public aware of how a variety of forces, including concentration, commercialization, and new technologies, can undermine the public service broadcasting needed to inform citizens and help democracies function. The report gave European policymakers a candid assessment of the current situation and provided recommendations for strengthening and restoring TV’s public service function. EUMAP also organized broadcasting conferences for media experts and participated in policy debates about the future of European television taking place within international organizations such as the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
EUMAP’s new monitoring exercise, launched in 2006, aims to assess why Roma children in Europe are often denied the same access to quality education offered to majority-population children. Roundtables organized by EUMAP in each monitored country bringing together ministry officials, civil society representatives, teachers, and parents contributed to the accuracy of the monitoring conducted by local experts in the nine countries covered by the Decade of Roma Inclusion.
To better understand the growing marginalization currently felt by many Muslims in Europe, EUMAP commissioned local experts in seven countries (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK) to carry out individual country reviews of Muslims’ situation relative to issues such as education, housing, employment, policing and security, and political representation. The review also analyzed policies targeting Muslims in cities within the participating countries in view of future in-depth monitoring looking specifically at the situation of Muslims in European cities.
