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In a recent article published in the New York Times, a Romanian woman of Roma ethnicity is ‎described as "delighted" upon learning that she has a new grandchild from her daughter, who is ten ‎years old. That is, the daughter and new mother is ten, not her newborn baby. The happy ‎grandmother then expresses her incomprehension at society's deprecating outcry regarding her ‎Roma lifestyle and customs, which simply value young brides and scores of children ‎. ‎
To most Westerns, when confronted by such imponderable backwardness, it is hard to ‎retain any compassion or sympathy for the Gypsies; one inevitably recoils in disgust when accosted ‎by Gypsy women on the streets of European metropolises, who are dressed in long and ‎patterned skirts, and orbited by their impish children while ‎nagging for money. What is it about this minority -once the bohemians and ‎clairvoyants of Europe- that supposedly makes them eschew education, society and civilization to ‎engage in criminal activities and begging to provide for their large families, who remain backward, ‎dysfunctional and depraved? ‎

It is generally accepted that the East European Gypsies have been subjected to systematic ‎discrimination and persecution during the time of communism in Eastern and Central Europe. This included ‎restricted access to education, employment opportunities and social services, the forced ‎sterilisation of Roma women and the denial of equal status in the society due to their darker skin ‎or unconventional lifestyle ‎. The result was acute poverty, widespread illiteracy, criminal ‎involvement and a high degree of social cohesion, which reinforced their social ostracism and ‎further diminished their prospects as equal and dignified citizens.

Nevertheless, many East ‎Europeans blame this social and economic marginalization on the Roma themselves, who ‎ostensibly do not want to embrace civilization, pointing out to the failed efforts by the national ‎governments and the EU to improve their living conditions. Simply put, they assert, the Gypsies ‎are innately backward, criminal and vicious.‎
With the fall of Communism and the 2004 and 2007 EU enlargements, scores of poor and ‎uneducated Gypsies dashed to Western Europe, many engaging in criminal activities and begging ‎while living in squalid illegal camps on the outskirts of major cities, which have been rightly ‎described by French authorities as "sources of illegal trafficking, of profoundly shocking living ‎standards, of exploitation of children for begging, of prostitution and crime ‎". This led to increased ‎xenophobia and prejudice towards East Europeans and prompted the governments of France and ‎Italy to close down the camps and deport its inhabitants, while verbally reassuring an alarmed EU ‎Commission that it was not targeting the minority group as a whole.

In the case of the latest ‎French expulsions in 2010, the police raided 300 illegal camps and expelled about 1000 Romanian ‎and Bulgarian Gypsies who "threatened public safety" and lacked the required residence permits, ‎even offering monetary compensation to those who chose to return "voluntarily"‎ ‎. However, a ‎leaked government memo soon revealed that, contrary to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, ‎‎"the French authorities had been instructed to target Roma camps, rather than deal with migrants ‎on a case-by-case basis ‎". Consequently, fulminating Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding ‎threatened infringement procedures against the French government but soon dropped the case ‎when France "reacted positively", offering "sufficient commitments to rectify shortcomings in ‎its immigration laws ‎". In the meantime however, many of these Gypsies are returning to ‎France and to their old lifestyle. ‎

The plight of the East European Gypsies is not a national problem that only pertains to the ‎national agendas of their home countries. Rather, as former president of Romania Emil ‎Constantinescu declared in a recent conference in Berlin, it is a European issue that necessitates a ‎comprehensive European response. Since most Gypsies possess very little capital or vocational ‎training, it should focus most importantly on promoting education to allow them to access legal ‎employment. At the same time, Europeans must get rid of negative stereotypes regarding ‎Gypsies and adopt a humane and unbiased attitude towards them.

For instance, in Romanian ‎slang, one way of insulting someone is to call him a Gypsy- or tigan. Furthermore, the East ‎European attitude that Gypsies are somehow innately backward is just as ignorant and very hurtful ‎to their integration. Lastly, police raids and deportations are not only ineffectual, humiliating and a ‎waste of money -the Gypsies are coming back anyway- but they reinforce the view that the Roma ‎minority is just as undesired and despised in Western Europe as it has been in the East. Instead, ‎the French government could invest in more effective social programs and constructive dialogue to ‎foster integration and alleviate their plight.

Anamaria Tamas is a graduate of McGill University and is currently an intern at the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy, an NGO based in Berlin.

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