Who is Afraid of Migrating Roma?

Karin Waringo, European Roma Information Office

In March and April 2004, my organisation, the European Roma Information Office (ERIO), received an above average number of phone calls from journalists asking us for the names of potential interlocutors in Slovakia. The reason for this sudden interest in Slovakia was not just the recent social unrests in this country, where a desperate population of mainly Roma protested against severe cuts of the social benefits. It rather appears that the unrest reminded west European media of the plight of the Roma minority in Slovakia and other central and east European countries. What, indeed, if the east European Roma would seek the fulfilment of the European Union’s promise of freedom, justice and security by moving westwards once the accession of their countries to the EU would allow them to do so?

Anti-Roma Campaign in the Media

Already in January, British tabloids had sent their reporters to Slovakia to find the substance for a huge scare story on the motive of a Roma invasion after 1 May. The reporters came back with heart-rending stories about desperate Roma allegedly anxiously waiting to move to Great Britain following enlargement. “Britain, here we are!” was the headline of a cover story in a right-leaning tabloid The Daily Express. It displayed a picture of an untidy looking young man with a child on his back, obviously just on his way to Great Britain.[1]

The journalists chose Slovakia for understandable reasons. Amongst the countries slated to join the EU on 1 May 2004, Slovakia is the country with the second largest Roma population after Hungary, namely some 480,000 people.[2] The overall economic situation in Slovakia is bleak, particularly in the eastern areas where large number of Roma live. International human rights reports, such as the ECRI country report and the country report by the US State Department, as well as the progress reports by the European Commission, have regularly highlighted discrimination against and marginalisation of Roma in this country, including gross violations of their most basic rights.[3] This all made Slovakia a suitable example to demonstrate what the tabloids sought to demonstrate: that several tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even 1.6 million east European Roma are planning “to invade” Great Britain and to spend a life in welfare on the back of the British taxpayer’s money.[4]

Of course, one can argue: “what else do you expect from papers such as The Daily Express, Sun or The Sunday Times?” But in fact, the campaign was kicked off by a very respectable magazine, The Economist, which on 15 January 2004 ran an article on the potential impact of a hypothetical mass immigration of citizens from the new member states following the EU enlargement.[5] While the magazine tried to downplay the fears it had itself raised, highlighting that the new immigrants would bring in more to the British economy then they would cost, it nevertheless qualified these soothing words. Accordingly, “the bigger worry for the rich-country governments concerns migrants in search for state benefits.” And for those hard of understanding it added: “Central Europe’s Roma minorities … are a particular case for concern.”[6] The magazine ultimately regretted that the times when Great Britain re-imposed visa restrictions on some east European countries in order to prevent east European Roma from lodging asylum applications are now over.[7]

Old Europe’s Hidden Fears

If Great Britain became the centre of a shameful media campaign and political discourse, this was ironically only a follow up to the protectionist and xenophobic policies of the other EU member states. One by one, they announced that they would make use of the “transition period” foreseen in the accession agreements before granting freedom of movement to the citizens of the new member states. By imposing quotas or allowing immigration only for particular professional sectors or job categories, the old EU member states made sure that immigration would be restricted to a few hand-picked individuals and certainly not provide a loophole for the impoverished and marginalised masses of central and eastern Europe, including Roma.

The EU member states have always been concerned about the possibility of having a huge number of east European Roma searching a “safe haven” in the West. This concern has not only been based on the well-documented fact that Roma have been particularly hard-hit by the effects of economic transition in central and eastern Europe and have become victims of resurgent nationalism and racist hatred. There is also a persisting belief in western Europe that Roma are traditional migrants and would thus have a much higher propensity to move. As a matter of fact Roma, and particularly the Roma of central and eastern Europe, became sedentary long ago, and the overall number of nomadic Roma is estimated at between three and five per cent. Moreover, this concern bordering on obsession with Roma immigration reveals the prevalence of centuries-old prejudices against Roma. Roma continue to be seen as criminals and thieves whom no country wants to have on its territory.[8]

Despite well-documented, including by the EU Commission, evidence of persisting human rights violations against Roma in eastern Europe, Romani asylum seekers saw their applications systematically turned down as unfounded, based on the assumption that Roma would leave their countries essentially for economic reasons.[9] In October 1999, the Belgian authorities deported a group of 74 Slovak Roma back to Bratislava, for which Belgium was later condemned by the European Court of Human Rights.[10] Some EU countries, including Belgium and the UK, re-imposed visa restrictions or negotiated internal immigration controls in exchange for visa waivers with countries with large Roma populations such as Romania. In Summer 2001, Great Britain established a “pre-clearance” at the Prague airport, during which “Roma-look-alikes” were singled out and prevented from boarding airplanes to the UK.[11] Five years after the end of the war, many Roma refugees from Kosovo continue to live in limbo, due to the unwillingness of their host countries to grant them permanent residence rights.

Throughout the accession process, the European Union, in particular via the EU Commission, persistently urged the candidate countries of central and eastern Europe to improve the situation of their ethnic minorities, and especially Roma, as a prerequisite for the entry into the EU. Even at that time, it was felt that western Europe’s concern for the east European Roma was not totally disinterested. Sweeping restrictions of the freedom of movement and populist reactions in some countries[12] have now shown that the Union of 15 did not feel entirely comfortable with the idea of having over a million more Roma among its population.[13]

Today, many west European countries note with relief that east European Roma will no longer be able to lodge asylum applications in western Europe following the entry of their countries into the EU. Already in March, after the riots in Slovakia that were quelled by the police and military forces, the Finnish authorities made clear that Finland would not grant asylum to Slovak Roma who started arriving there in greater numbers.[14] By 1 May 2004, the British authorities terminated the asylum procedure for east European Roma and at the same time cut the welfare provisions for them, a decision which was later questioned by the British High Court.[15] A spokesman from the Home Office commented on the government’s decision saying: "They will have three choices. The first is to go home or leave for another EU country. The second is to register as workers under the scheme for new member states. The third is that if they remain in the UK they must be self-supporting. Those are the options."[16]

What’s for future?

Even in a Europe without borders, Roma are condemned to life on the margins. The outskirts of the cities, the economically deprived regions, the grey zones of society are the only places their stay is tolerated. Roma throughout Europe have a lower life expectancy and much higher infant mortality. The UNDP found that Roma in central and east Europe face living conditions which are closer to those of sub-Saharan Africa than to any European country, with one out of six facing starvation.[17]

Roma continue to be marginalised and discriminated in most of the EU member states, in the East and in the West. The latest ECRI report on Germany has noted that:

In March 2004, the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed concern:

When Bulgaria and Romania will have joined, the EU will have between eight and ten million Roma among its citizens. This makes the Roma a group that is equal or even larger than the population of most European states. As a common feature of the Roma communities is centuries-old history of discrimination and persecution. Until today, neither the EU nor its individual member states have tackled anti-Gypsism as a long-standing pattern of European culture and identity, nor have they developed means to counteract discrimination and exclusion. Instead, a policy of containment is maintained, isolating Roma and their problems, which in itself is largely the result of discrimination by the majority.

A decade after the start of accession negotiations, this is evidence of a huge failure, the failure to include those who have been most in need. On an EU-wide level, programmes and policies combating the exclusion of Roma simply do not exist. There is no EU-wide monitoring and sanctioning mechanism for human rights violations, including violations of rights of Roma.[20]

The real threat for Europe appears to be not a massive immigration of Roma from the Eastern to the West; rather, the threat is that Europe will maintain the centuries-old status quo with Roma as social outcasts, for whom Europe’s promises of freedom, justice, and security are nothing but an empty shell.

Footnotes

[1] The Daily Express, 20 January 2004.

[2] According to estimates made by Nicolae Gheorghe and Jean-Pierre Liégeois, in: Roma/Gypsies: A European Minority, Minority Rights Group, 2004.

[3] European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance, Third Report Slovakia, CRI (2004) 4, 27 January 2004.

[4] These are the figures which were given by the Sun (19 January 2004), The Sunday Times (18 January 2004) and The Daily Express (20 January 2004).

[5] “The coming hordes,” The Economist, 15 January 2004.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid: “The poorest Roma villages, especially in eastern Slovakia, are among the most desperate places in Europe, with no work and little schooling. A flow of Roma migrants claiming political asylum led Britain to reintroduce temporary visas for Slovaks a few years ago. Such barriers will be illegal after EU enlargement.”

[8] It is worth noting that both, the British tabloids and The Economist, based their scare stories on the assumption that Roma would want to go to Western Europe to live on social welfare, discarding the idea that they might want to look for better job opportunities, as other workers.

[9] A case in point is the attitude of the British government towards Romani asylum seekers from the Czech Republic. Finland in 2000 likewise adopted fast track procedures for Roma who were considered economic migrants. Finland was later criticised for this approach by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. See: “UN Committee: Finland must guarantee asylum-seekers' rights,” Helsinginsanotat, 25 August 2003, http://www2.helsinginsanomat.fi/english/archive/news.asp?id=20030825IE5.

[10] Case 51564/99, Conka and others v. Belgium.

[11] See for instance: “UK reimposes Czech asylum controls,” BBC, 27 August 2001, at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1511070.stm.

[12] In Austria, for instance, Heinz-Christian Strache of the FPÖ made a campaign against Roma. See: "Roma-assault on Vienna"(FPÖ-Strache warnt vor “Roma-Ansturm auf Wien), Der Standard, 6 May 2004, at: http://derstandard.at/?id=1655232&sap=1.

[13] There are no exact data on the number of Roma; estimates are based on the indications people made in the context of population census, as well as estimates by NGOs. The Minority Rights Group has for instance estimated that there are between 908,000 and 1,490,000 Roma in the countries which joined the EU on May 1, 2004; see Table in: Legal situation of Roma in Europe, Doc. 9397, 19 April 2002. According to other estimates these numbers would range between 1,3 and 1,6 million; see: Gerhard Baumgartner and Florian Freund, Roma Policies in Austria, the European Union, and Beyond, Oberwart, 2003.

[14] “Record number of Slovakian asylum-seekers arrive in Finland in early 2004,” Helsingin Sanomat (International Edition), 9 March 2004, at: http://www2.helsinginsanomat.fi/english/archive/news.asp?id=20040309IE5; “Record Number of Slovakian Roma land at Helsinki-Vantaa,” Helsingin Sanomat (International Edition), 19 March 2004, at: http://helsinki-hs.net/news.asp?id=20040319IE5.

[15] “Roma families ‘caught in asylum trap’,” BBC News, at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3682845.stm.

[16] “EU asylum seekers lose support,” BBC News, at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3675101.stm.

[17] UNDP, Avoiding the Dependency Trap - A Human Development Report on the Roma Minority in Central and Eastern Europe, 2003.

[18] European Commission against Racism and Discrimination, Third report on Germany, CRI (2004) 23, 8 June 2004.

[19] Le comité pour l’élimination de la discrimination raciale achève les travaux de sa soixante-quatrième session, Press document, 12 March 2004, at: http://www.unog.ch/news2/documents/newsfr/crd04015f.htm (own translation).

[20] In 2000, the OSCE issued a Roma report which listed a number of acts of violence against Roma in the OSCE member states. See: OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, Report on the situation of Roma and Sinti in the OSCE Area, The Hague, 2000. Some Roma organisations such as the Roma National Congress have carried on their own data collection, but there is no official EU-wide survey of racist attacks against Roma.