User:Ronline/Affirmative action in Romania

Affirmative action in Romania has been introduced in a variety of areas from the 1990s onwards. It is most prevalent in the case the political representation and educational access of ethnic minorities.

Romani people
Romani people, pejoratively known as "gypsies", are the second-largest ethnic minority in Romania, and suffer from a lower employment rate and educational attainment than the rest of the population. According to a 2000 UNDP study, Romani people have an unemployment rate of 24%, in comparison to a national average of 5%. The study also calculated the 2000 Human Development Index of Romani people to be 0.570, in comparison to 0.775 in Romania as a whole.

Romani people benefit from a number of affirmative action programmes, both in employment and education. The Romanian Police, for instance, has made some job offers exclusively open to applicants of Romani ethnicity. Aside from providing Romani people with employment opportunities, the scheme has also moved the police force closer to reflecting the ethnic make-up of Romanian society and engaging with Romani communities.

Furthermore, many educational institutions offers reserved places for applicants of Romani ethnicity (locuri rezervate pentru romi). For instance, a university course with 56 places may also offer, in addition to these places, 3 reserved places for Romani students. Unlike a quota, there is no requirement for the reserved places to be filled, and it has been reported in the media that the number of reserved places often exceeds the number of Romani applicants.

Affirmative action in parliament
Romania's 18 officially-recognised ethnic minorities are each granted a reserved seat in the country's Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of parliament. This enables the representation of ethnic-minority parties and associations which would not otherwise be able to reach the 5% threshold required to enter parliament. This law does not prevent ethnic minority parties from gaining additional seats through the electoral process. The Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania, for instance, has exceeded the 5% threshold in every election since 1992, currently holding 18 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and forming part of the government coalition.