Sarkozy: bad model for Romania

On August 19, 2010, 61 Romanian citizens of Roma ethnicity living in France were repatriated to Bucharest, Romania. It was the first group sent home after French authorities announced in July that they would initiate a campaign aimed at dismantling Roma camps (approximately 300) and expelling Roma people back to their countries of origin, namely Romania and Bulgaria.

Nicoleta Bitu is Programme coordinator and one of the founding members of Romani CRISS, a human rights NGO established in Romania in 1993. It carries out projects, fights discrimination and actively lobbies for Roma rights.

Nicoleta Bitu answers our questions about the Roma crackdown ordered by French President Sarkozy.

How many Roma will be repatriated in the near future?

More and more Roma people are coming back to Romania. I don’t know how many people have been repatriated to date, there are no exact numbers.

French authorities have announced they are going to expel 700 more Roma people. In September there will be a second repatriation to Romania and Bulgaria. People will come from France, from camps dismantled by the French government. The French government hasn’t started the new repatriations yet but it has started to demolish camps.

How many Roma people live in Romania?

Officially, according to the last census, which was done in 1992, there are approximately 500,000 Roma people living in Romania. Unofficially their number is between 1,500,000 and 2,000,000 people, which is 10 per cent of the entire Romanian population.

Where are the repatriated Roma living? What is their situation like now?

They are living in their own houses, in their own villages. Roma who have been repatriated are without job or they work in the black market. The Roma people who received 300 euros to go back to Romania and Bulgaria are also entitled to a supplementary aid from the French government, from the Office for Immigration, but not many people have benefited from this aid.

Is someone in charge of these people now?

The local authorities are supposed to take care of them when they come back home and the French government is putting a lot of pressure on the Romanian government to insure that this happens. The French government nominated a State Secretary under the Ministry of Works to oversee this.  However, as far as NGOs are concerned, the problem is that the Romanian government only takes initiatives when under pressure from foreign governments. In fact the political class has no real political will, it only operates when under pressure from the European Commission or under pressure from healthier States from the West.

Are there agreements between the French government and your government?

It would seem so but we don’t know certain yet. There has been an exchange of political declarations between the two governments in the last two days, they haven’t been very peaceful. For example Pierre Lellouche, the French State Secretary, is pressing the Romanian government to take the Roma situation more seriously. He has threatened to suspend access to the Schengen space if the Romanian government doesn’t deal with poverty, immigration and the situation of the Roma people.

What Roma policies have been put in place in Romania ?

We do have better policies and better implementation policies than Bulgaria, but they are not good enough. We have a national strategy for the improvement of the situation of the Roma, which was established in 2001 under pressure from the European Commission. Nevertheless, after the accession into the European Union in 2007, the Romanian authorities started to be more reluctant to implement policies, because the European Commission does not monitor them anymore, so they feel more free to speak how they want and to do whatever they want.

Local authorities think that, as Berlusconi and Sarkozy can speak out against Roma without being punished, they  are also allowed to speak up against the Roma without fear of punishment.

Berlusconi and Sarkozy are like role models for authorities in Romania.

When Berlusconi gave speeches against the Roma (in 2007 and 2008 and even last year, when the Italian government started to fingerprint people in the camps), neither the Romanian society at large nor the European Commission amended him or punished him. 

Do you think that people will stigmatize the Roma who have come back to Romania?

For sure, because they blame Roma for the negative image Romania has internationally. It is a kind of stigmatization. I think that social conflict will be inevitable.

What is your reaction to the position that the EU has taken?

Viviane Reding, EU Justice Commissioner, published a press release saying that she would monitor with attention the situation and that the Roma issue would not be solved with repatriation. I am pleased the Commission has taken a more pro Roma stance.

For the future what do you expect from the EU?

A more clear position on sanctioning national States. The responsibility lies in national States, not in the European Union.

The  European Union should monitor States more closely and sanction them when they do not act in the interests of all of their citizens.

Find out more:

Deyan Kolev of the Centre for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance – Amalipe answers our questions about the recent Roma expulsions to Bulgaria. Read more…

Angela Kocze, one of Hungary’s most accredited Roma rights advocates, answers our questions about the Roma crackdown ordered by President Nicolas Sarkozy. Read more…

 

“Preliminary Information regarding the repatriation of 61 persons from France,” can be downloaded from  Romani CRISS’s website.