Romania: Calin Pop, AVSI

According to Calin Pop, director of Fundatia Asvi in Romania, Italy and Romania are mirrors that reflect the same thing. In Romania, as in Italy, the attitude towards certain groups of people is always that: ?They cannot be integrated?. Those who come to Italy to work are the same people who in Romania work, those who come here to do else are the same people that in Romania are not integrated into the social and formal training systems. ?Those whom we, unfortunately, do not work with?, says Pop who has worked for Asvi, an Italian development NGO, for over 10 years.

Who has come to Italy?
If before it was fair to say that there was one thief among every 100 honest workers, today you may say that out of one thousand honest workers there are 10 thieves. The proportion hasn?t changed, what is different is the volume. We are, of course, talking about criminals who were criminals in Romania too. Since 1989 there has been an increase in freedom and movement, and many prison convicts, when leaving prison, also left the country. Security within Romania has increased and criminality has moved abroad.

Italian newspapers talk of 26% less lawlessness in Romania this year (since Romania?s entry into the EU). Is it true?
We certainly feel that life is more peaceful here, but not just since January. Nowadays it is safe to walk around the streets of Bucharest even at three in the morning. The media report fewer rapes and robberies. The abandoned children living in the city?s sewers that Bucharest was famous for in the 90?s are hardly visible anymore. But I have noticed a situation reminiscent of Paris and Rome: young adults on the streets selling their bodies to the sex trade. These are the people we cannot seem to involve in our social and training projects.

Who is to blame for this exodus?
Obviously migration occurs because Italy is a richer country than Romania, and people leave because they are desperate. But I think there is a hidden government agenda that tends to favour the emigration of the problematic sectors of Romanian society, Roma and non Roma. It is not pure coincidence that they leave, they are allowed to. Obviously this is all covered up with pretty slogans, speeches, international agreements and laws.

You mentioned that it is hard for you as well to involve these people?
We have always sought to intervene in favour of the sectors of society that are most at risk: the Roma, families with social problems, families who?s husbands and fathers are in prison, children left alone after the emigration of their parents? We help this people materially and we provide formal training opportunities and this is the best means of preventing migration. In the areas we operate in and among the people we have worked with there is, in fact, a very low percentage of emigration. What this means is that these interventions make a difference. Social cohesion is stronger, there are alternatives. What we see is that people leave those places where there is nothing, no social intervention, where all that remains is social desperation and poverty. And all this must be seen in light of the fact that we work seven Roma communities that lie on the border with Hungary, the easiest route to Italy. Afterall, 25% of families live in poverty, and the unemployment rate is between 8% and 18%. In the countryside many families survive on state subsidies and there are areas in the country where 70% of young adults are abroad. And every summer, when they return to visit their relatives they bring with them 3 job opportunities they have arranged for friends and family.

What do you think of the idea of Italy helping Romania to create more job opportunities?
I think it can help to reduce emigration but especially it can help to change the situation here. In the city it isn?t so hard to find a job, as there are plenty of foreign companies investing here, also thanks to European incentives. The EU has promised one and a half million jobs. This is a good thing, but people also leave because abroad there is the prospect of earning more, here wages are still very low. Those who are abroad already will not return just because there are more jobs, it will take another 5 or 6 years at least for wages here to become competitive.

It is easy enough for people now to say ?we told you so?. But how much of Italy was present in Romania over the course of the last 10 months? Hasn?t Romania?s entry into the EU been underestimated?
Italy is the number one country in terms of industrial investments here, there are 20 thousand Italian companies in Romania and 13 thousand are in Bucharest, each with 5 to 15 employees. From a social point of view, Italy has sustained us for a long time, allocating a great deal of development funds to Romania. Since January, however, there has been nothing because development aid is not passed between EU member states. The EU structural development funds should be arriving, 19 billion euros for 6 years, but in 10 months not a penny has been seen.

What changes are in store for the Romanian third sector?
It has been a heavy blow. The Romanian thirs sector depended, at least by 80%, on foreign donations. All NGOs suffer from the lack of funding. Now all social assistance depends on the state, that receives ad hoc EU funds, while private organisations can only use their EU funds for business purposes. The problem is that the state is behind in their culture of social issues. This is a danger for Italy and other EU countries, as without services to help young people, especially those who come out of orphanages and reformatories, they will leave Romania without having ever been through any kind of formal education and without knowing of any alternatives.

How does Fundatia Asvi work?
We carry out formal training thanks to funds from the Italian Minister of foreign affairs that we ?won? last year. It is a project that covers four regions and that is designed for young people with problems, the Roma, AIDS patients, youth in the countryside and so on. We also receive funds from the Global Fund to help AIDS patients specifically, and from the Regional authority in Lombardy, Italy, for other formal training courses. We also have distance support for families programmes in Italy.

Accordino to you, what is needed for a constructive relationship to be developed between Italy and Romania?
One thins that is very important and that doesn?t occur is the creation of partnerships between the Italian areas that are most affected by Romanian immigration and the regions in Romania that these people have escaped from. Partnerships that could offer social services, supported by Romanian companies, that focused specifically on education and training. This geographical mapping is not hard to carry out, as migration is not casual. At the top there are Portugal and Spain, because both offer children excellent services. Italy, in the first few years of the century (2000), was also at the top of the list, and resists today because of the strong Romanian presence. I think that this is the real solution, because either way you look at it Italy will have to spend money on this issue. Intervening in Romania has the added advantage of costing less. Let me make it clear that I am talking about preventing migration, and not sending Romanians back to Romania.

Why?
Because forced returns are money thrown down the drain. It is a present that the Italian government gives criminals. They come back, for a couple of days, see their relatives, and go back to Italy again.

More info:
www.avsi.org