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Business English: Expelled Roma vow to return to France
Sarkozy's scheme raises questions about policy in the EUHardly had the plane touched down on the tarmac at Bucharest, than many of the Romany families deported by France for outstaying their welcome were planning to head straight back.
"Of course we are thinking about going back," 26-year-old Ionut Balasz told journalists as he arrived at the airport. "Life is better there than in Romania, even when you are illegal."
Mr Balasz's better life has been in a makeshift camp on the edges of Grenoble, one of the 300-odd illegal shantytowns that Nicolas Sarkozy, French president, has promised to raze.
The policy has sparked an international outcry, with human rights organisations accusing France of expelling a single ethnic group, an act illegal under EU law, but strenuously denied by authorities. But it has also raised questions over Europe's commitment to millions of its own citizens and its pledge to allow free circulation across borders.
Most of the Roma being targeted by France come from Romania and Bulgaria, among the newest of the EU's member states. And they are among Europe's most vulnerable citizens, with an average life expectancy as much as half the EU average, and rates of illiteracy and infant mortality far higher.
Yet none of these new European citizens has the automatic right to work in France and without a means of support they cannot stay longer than three months. The same is true in 10 other European countries, which, despite European Commission calls, continue to restrict access to their labour markets for nationals from Romania and Bulgaria.
"France is allowed to restrict access to its labour market under EU law... [But] it's somewhat hypocritical to complain about people not having money to subsist in France when you don't offer access to the labour market at the same time," said Rob Kushen, managing director of the European Roma Rights Centre in Budapest.
Nonetheless, western European countries such as France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Greece still promise a better life for many who face exclusion, discrimination and sometimes even worse at home.
A history of discrimination
In Romania, home to Europe's largest population of Roma with some estimates putting the number as high as 2.5m out of a population of 22m, gypsies have long been marginalised. With only limited access to education, government services and the legal system, the Roma have remained stigmatised, a pattern repeated across much of Europe.
Discrimination at home has forced many back on to the road in search of work, and the fall of communism 20 years ago and then EU accession opened the doors to a wave of emigration which experts say is only likely to increase.
But the restrictions on work in most countries - with notable exceptions such as Spain and Finland - mean that many have been forced to turn to the black market and some to crime when they arrive. This has made the Roma an easy target for politicians seeking to distract attention from problems at home by playing on fears over security.
In Italy, which has some 60,000 non-Italian Roma among its population, the government even declared a national "gypsy emergency" in 2008 leading to mass expulsions as part of a security package, elements of which were found to be incompatible with EU law.
Yet, according to Olivier Legros of the European Roma research group, UrbaRom, there is evidence from some eastern European countries to suggest that crime rates are no higher than among the population at large.
The European Commission, meanwhile, appears to have recognised that its attempts to resolve the plight of the Roma have largely failed and that its policies need reform. Nonetheless, officials point out that some Euro17.5bn has been made available for projects to help "Roma and other vulnerable groups" since 2003. The problem is simply, they suggest, that member states are not using the money for this vulnerable population.
"We think more can done at member state level to help the Roma," one official told the Financial Times.
But there is little evidence that the political will is there.
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The Financial Times, 03.09.2010
© 2010 The Financial Times,
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