Program to Train and Employ Roma as Bus Drivers Launched in Belgrade Belgrade’s latest answer to a chronic bus driver shortage is also a litmus test for how seriously the city takes Roma inclusion: a flagship program to turn 100 Roma into GSP bus drivers, with the promise of stable, long‑term jobs.

How the project took shape

In the run‑up to the launch, the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, the City of Belgrade and public transport operator GSP hashed out a scheme to recruit Roma candidates into a tailored training track, framed as “Support and Monitoring of Participants from the Roma Community in the Bus Driver Training Program.”

At a conference presenting the project, officials underscored that this is not a one‑off internship pipeline but a pathway into the city’s largest public utility systems, which are struggling to find staff and expand services.

Government: jobs, security, and symbolism

Minister for Human and Minority Rights Demo (Djem) Beriša used the launch to hammer one message: permanence. Finding a job is not enough, he argued; “it is important to provide workers with stable employment as it offers them a secure future,” stressing that Roma participants “will have permanent employment, regular income and their families will be stable in the future.” The project, he said, began in talks with Belgrade and GSP precisely because big systems “have the capacity to accept these people into permanent employment.”

Deputy City Assembly president Igor Jovanović framed Roma as an untapped demographic engine: young, numerous, and a “huge capacity” in human resources, while poverty and discrimination remain “generators of problems” the project is meant to break. GSP, he added, genuinely needs “100 people we will hire” for new lines, with two‑year contracts rolling into open‑ended prospects.

A test of whether promises last

Pro‑government outlets celebrate the program as a milestone in Roma employment policy, spotlighting titles that foreground “Support Roma Employment Through Bus Driver Training” and the “Emphasis on Stable Employment.” The real verdict, however, will come later—when today’s training cohorts either have those secure, long‑term jobs, or find the promise of permanence was just another temporary stop.