Slovakia in the dock: Advocate General finds systematic and persistent failures to end school segregation
05 August 2025
In the infringement case before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), Advocate General Capeta issued her opinion that the Slovak Republic has systematically and persistently segregated Romani school children, and failed to fulfil its obligations under the Race Equality Directive (RED). She stated
“One cannot ignore the sad fact that every year in which segregation is still present, each group of Roma children affected by that adverse treatment misses an opportunity for their future. That is difficult, if not impossible, to remedy.”
If the CJEU follows the Advocate General’s opinion, this will mark an historic victory for Roma rights organisations that have campaigned and litigated for almost twenty years to end school segregation in Slovakia and hold the state to account for this fundamental abuse of the rights of Romani children. It would also bring the European Commission’s decade-long infringement procedure – which began with a letter of formal notice to Slovakia on 30 April 2015 – to a just conclusion.
The Advocate General proposed that the court declare, that by placing a disproportionate number of Romani children in special schools, or special classes, and in separate classes in regular schools or in separate schools, the Slovak Republic has systematically and persistently failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 2(1) of Council Directive 2000/43/EC of 29 June 2000 implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin.
The Commission explained that it decided to bring proceedings before the Court against the Slovak Republic as it assessed that no appreciable progress was being made in eliminating the discrimination against Roma children. More specifically, the Commission claims that Romani children are being placed in special schools or special classes for children with intellectual or other disabilities in significantly larger numbers than other children. It also alleges that Romani children are being segregated from other children in primary education in regular schools, by being placed in Roma-only schools, in separate classes or on separate floors, or by being separated in school canteens.
That adverse treatment of Roma children is, according to the Commission, “the result of practices which have existed for a long time and which the Slovak Republic has failed to eliminate. Those practices are widespread, in the sense that they give rise to discrimination against Roma children in the education system throughout the country.”
For the Court, the AG stated that all that is relevant is whether the Commission’s evidence proves that the discrimination existed at the material time and whether the Slovak Republic has proven that the measures it put in place had succeeded in eliminating the discrimination by that time.
The Commission’s principal claims are therefore that a result has not been achieved, as regards putting an end to the placement of disproportionately high numbers of Roma children in special schools and as regards desegregating Roma children in regular education. The Commission considers that measures adopted by the government to be inadequate or not sufficiently enforced, and further asserts that those measures have not yet eliminated or even reduced the level of discrimination against Roma children in the Slovak education system.
An obligation of result
Under the Race Equality Directive, the AC stressed that it imposes an obligation of result, and that the government’s arguments about the measures implemented to achieve the result do not constitute a defence; it does not refute the allegation of failure to fulfil an obligation. Additionally, an obligation of result that entails a positive duty to eliminate discrimination against Romani children in schools is in line with the position of the European Court of Human Rights in its judgments relating to the segregation of Roma children in schools.
Further the AC rejected arguments from the government that it cannot be held responsible for segregation that is not under its control, such as white flight, or the argument that Roma-only schools are a consequence of territorial segregation.
Positive obligations to prevent discriminatory outcomes
The AC expressed the view that school segregation cannot be justified by the existence of segregation affecting Roma in general in the Slovak Republic, and further that the positive duties imposed on Member States by the RED require that they enact and enforce measures to prevent the segregation in schools that results from the prejudice entrenched in a society. She concluded that “the Commission has sufficiently demonstrated that there exists a widespread practice of segregation affecting Roma children in separate classes in regular schools or in separate schools. The Slovak Republic, in contrast, has not rebutted those findings, nor can such segregation be justified.”
In conclusion, Advocate General Capeta proposed that the Court declares that the Slovak Republic has systematically and persistently failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 2(1) of Council Directive 2000/43/EC of 29 June 2000 implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin, read in conjunction with Article 2(2)(b) and Article 3(1)(g) thereof; and order the Slovak Republic to bear its own costs and to pay those incurred by the European Commission. We await the Court’s verdict.
