ABSTRACT
The chapter explores the development of Roma politics in Romania in the context of EU enlargement. It illuminates the reasons why minority protection conditionality of accession of CEE states in general, and of Romania in particular, reached only a superficial level of implementation in regards to improving the situation of Roma.The high costs of exclusion from the EU club prompted eastern European states with significant minority populations to accept the Copenhagen conditions and to try to implement new policies towards national minorities. However, the sustainability of these policies was questionable from the start due to the negative consequences of the issue of double standards in both pre- and post-accession periods. The economic and political situation in Romania coupled with the European pressure to comply with the Copenhagen criteria of accession brought about a series of public agencies of Roma representation in pre-accession period.
