An estimated 12 million Romani people live in Europe. They have been there for a thousand years and have been excluded from society and persecuted as "gypsies" there for centuries.
Europe’s largest minority remains the most unwanted nation on the continent. Tens of thousands of Romani people from southeastern Europe are now heading west, fleeing discrimination and poverty, but the EU Member States are unable to aid them, according to an article in the current issue of the German magazine Der Spiegel (the full English translation of the piece is at http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/europe-failing-to-protect-roma-from-discrimination-and-poverty-a-942057.html).
Tens of thousands of Romani people have already fled the malnutrition and oppression they have been facing in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and elsewhere. In Germany, France and Italy, Romani immigrants end up living in camps and half-destroyed buildings, where some turn to crime.
Moreover, it seems that ancient prejudices about Romani people still persist in Western Europe. "The dark-skinned Roma sings and steals, doesn’t put shoes on his children’s feet and likes living in the dirt — that’s their tradition, so the prejudice goes," Der Spiegel writes of the deeply-entrenched opinions about Romani people still alive and well in Western Europe.
The magazine also points out that Western governments have long ignored the Roma. In Germany, the Sinti have long been integrated, but Der Spiegel reports they have long been ignored, as have the Manouche in France and the Kalé in Spain.
"[N]o one showed any interest in them — and no one asked about the Roma in southeastern Europe," Der Spiegel reports, adding that attention has only been drawn to them as more and more have come to Germany. The magazine opines that it is a miracle more Romani people haven’t left their home countries given the oppression they face.
Der Spiegel reports that the Roma encounter discrimination in wealthier countries such as Germany as well, adding that in addition to frequent insults, Romani people must also put up with physical assault. Political scientist Markus End says anti-Romani racism is "an everyday occurrence in Germany."
The RomnoKher information center in Mannheim has submitted a report to German MPs detailing how the German media embodies prejudices against Romani people, how vandals have been destroying memorials to the Romani people deported and murdered during the Nazi era, and how the ultra-right is declaiming against immigrants from Eastern Europe. The report says physical violence against Romani people is no exception.
Der Spiegel reports on the case of a Sinti man from the Saxon village of Klingenhain, who was called a "wog chieftain" by assailants and whose wife was called a "gypsy slut". The Sinti family faced such abuse for six years before someone set their house on fire.
Their children were also subjected to abuse at school and police had to accompany them home on one occasion to protect them from assault by neo-Nazis. The family eventually moved away.
Anti-Romani sentiments are even worse in other Western European countries, Der Spiegel reports. In Italy, the government is attempting to move Romani people into housing complexes made out of "container" units.
One example is the Salone complex, located outside of the ring highway that encircles Rome. "It’s a godforsaken place, reachable only by a narrow path," Der Spiegel reports, adding that it takes three or four hours to reach the center of the capital from there.
Salone, where approximately 500 families are living in "containers", is "supposed to be a model of a city-financed, ‘fully equipped’ housing estate for the minority — at least, that’s how the Italian government sees it," writes Der Spiegel – even though one encounters old couches, mattresses, rats and wandering dogs along its footpaths. According to Amnesty International, Italian politicians view the presence of Romani people as "comparable to a natural disaster".
Last summer, Der Spiegel reports, the vice-chair of the municipal council in the northern Italian city of Genova compared jellyfish to Romani people and vice versa. "Jellyfish are like gypsies: useless and always an annoyance," he said.
Der Spiegel reports that in France, Romani camps are destroyed with the aid of bulldozers. The method was introduced by the conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy and is being continued by his Socialist successor, François Hollande.
It is not only the ultra-right National Front in France who are convinced that most of the Romani population are incapable of joining society. Socialist Interior Minister Manuel Valls also agrees with that opinion, which immediately earned him criticism from EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding.
"It’s not possible to win with this issue," Reding told Der Spiegel, adding that only three government ministers attended a Romani summit held in the Spanish city of Cordoba in 2010. After that summit, she called on all the EU countries to submit strategies for Romani integration to Brussels.
Berlin’s submission, for example, stated that "there is no need for a special Roma strategy", but at the start of last December all 28 Member States began considering how to focus on integration measures for their Romani populations. "We will not hesitate to remind EU Member States of their obligations and to ensure that they fulfill them," Reding told Der Spiegel.
