Over the past five months, the Roma Diplomacy Network – part of the Global Roma Alliance for Strategic Security (GRASS) – has been warning about growing threats to the security of Europe’s largest minority. Yet the 18th European Roma Platform, co-organized in October by the EU Commission, ERGO, and ERIAC, failed to prioritize this urgent concern.
Now, in November, we are witnessing how anti-Roma rhetoric is turning into law: on 18 November 2025, the Slovenian parliament passed the so-called “Šutar Law,” which significantly expands police powers in designated “high-risk areas”, including warrantless home entry, surveillance, and exclusion orders. This new law effectively places local Roma in a state of exception, branding the entire Romani minority as a collective “security threat” – a framing that echoes patterns that Europe vowed never to repeat.
It is only now, following the Slovenian parliament’s passage of this specific legislation that many civil society actors in Europe have begun to react. This delay underscores a troubling pattern: Roma security is acknowledged only after discriminatory laws are enacted, not before.
On 8 September, EU Commissioners Lahbib and Brunner responded to GRASS’s letter, affirming that Roma security is indeed a priority for the Commission. But affirmation without pre-emptive action is insufficient. The recent developments from Slovenia and Hungary to Slovakia and Bulgaria – demand coordinated, anticipatory measures. Roma communities cannot afford to wait for post-facto solidarity.
What’s needed now is not reactive condemnation, but proactive protection: legal monitoring systems, early-warning coalitions, and diplomatic pressure at EU and national level before anti-Roma laws are introduced. The recent enactments of such laws in Slovenia and Hungary risk setting dangerous precedents for other EU member states. This is a clear signal that European Roma policies require urgent revision, and that Roma organizations and political parties in Europe should critically reassess their priorities and agendas. Romani people deserve real, strategic protection – not symbolic gestures after the harm is done.
