Roma-MdEP: Italiens Fingerabdruckerfassung sollte in weiterem Kontext gesehen werden[en] 

Um eine Zusammenfassung des Interviews zu lesen, klicken Sie bitte hier.

Italy’s Interior Minister Roberto Maroni put forward a proposal, late July, to collect fingerprints from all Roma people living in Italy, including children. The EU and human rights’ organisations slammed the plan, accusing the Italian government of racism. Yet Maroni defended it, saying a fingerprint database would make Roma integration faster and easier, while also serving as an instrument for crime prevention. Do you agree with him? 

To be specific, Mr Maroni said the accepted ‘security package’ is needed to identify children and immigrants staying in Italy without any official documents. Most of those children are subject to child trafficking. This is the main message of the Italian Foreign Ministry, communicated through Mr. Frattini. 

I tend to agree with experts in saying Italy’s government is trying to estimate the number of its Roma minorities. From what I heard, the proposal was to be expanded to include Muslims as well. Fingerprint databases are not unique in Italy or in the region. In Spain everyone has to give fingerprints. 

Seeing as, late on the night of 17 July, the Italian Parliament accepted to include every citizen, the proposal lost its discriminative character. Nonetheless, it was a bold act by the government to issue the proposal in such form. 

However, there is a quite different issue at stake, which is that these people have to be provided with identification documents to be included in the social system. This way we can make sure that they will not be victims of trafficking. It also decreases the chances of them choosing criminal organisations and gangs or having to live on the streets in awful conditions. 

So I definitely see some good will from the Italian government. But it was crucial for them to placate the public in this taut situation before the elections. Public opinion in Italy is quite against immigrants at the moment so this was just an answer to it. 

What’s more, mistakes were made during the implementation. According to our information, questions referring to ethnic origin and religious views have been included in the forms, and fingerprints have already been collected from Roma people. That makes the whole process illegal. 

We did address the European Parliament. But by the time the EP accepted a resolution on the Thursday, the Italian government had stopped collecting data. 

Will the delegation visiting Italy reveal the mistakes? 

As summer season has started in the European Parliament, the visit will be held between 18-20 September. The mission was launched by the Parliament’s LIBE Committee. Most committee members agreed on postponing our visit, because not only will the national situation be more relaxed, but fingerprinting, too, will have been implemented by then. So it will be easier to determine whether the methods are illegal or not. I do hope they won’t be. 

However, revealing whether illegal ethnic data was collected between 27 June and 2 July is out of our competency. 

You mentioned a motion for a resolution by the Parliament, issued on 10 July. This refers to “recent incidents involving attacks and aggression against Roma in Hungary”. What incidents does it refer to and why was this sentence included in the resolution? 

The motion for a resolution was the initiative of socialist, liberal, communist and green MEPs, and it was not supported by the European People’s Party, of which I am member. 

We had a long debate over whether to point the finger at certain countries. This is always a controversial question in the Parliament. 

Although it goes against national interests, the final version of the text included the statement that such incidents have occurred in Hungary as well. As far as I know, it was suggested by a fellow Hungarian MEP. The People’s Party therefore agreed to vote against the resolution. I abstained. 

As for the Parliament’s motion for a resolution as a whole, I find it inevitable to discuss such atrocities on a European level. If we open our eyes, it is obvious that the attacks have an ethnic factor. But our legal certainty is so weak that it is really hard to prove this in most cases. Nowadays, a whole lot of evidence is needed if one is trying to prove in a verdict that an incident happened because the injured person is of Roma ethnicity. 

Indeed, we know that many similar stories do exist. But, as a politician, I cannot contribute cases where evidence is missing. And that is the problem in the Italian case. Neither the Parliament nor the Commission has any evidence proving illegal data collection. 

The Italian tendency can be found in Hungary as well. There is a growing anti-gypsy attitude. Roma people are driven to the streets during the night, Molotov cocktails are thrown at them and thousands of people gather in bands shouting anti-Roma slogans. This type of discrimination was unfamiliar in Europe before. What’s more, in Hungary, you can see Roma people being intimidated in the media and in public as well. 

In some regions of Hungary it goes beyond the slogans. There is direct hostility. What specific steps do you think can help prevent this mutual hatred? 

A key problem is that very few people are familiar with the Roma culture. People simply do not know enough about Roma. Stereotypes are used even today. And now I would like to stress the role of the media in this aspect, because it has increased tremendously during the past 20 years. 

But unfortunately the press is not interested in presenting positive examples and true stories. Sensational and negative, fearsome coverage of Roma is far more common. 

Before the transition, there were public places where you could meet Roma people, where gypsies and non-gypsies worked together. There were mixed marriages and children studied together in school. But today, a huge proportion of Roma children study in segregated schools. The gap is becoming so wide between the two groups that soon we won’t be able to bridge it. We must open up prospects for Roma to live together with non-Roma in a peaceful and respectful atmosphere, not only so they can earn their family a living, but to make them open to society. 

The financial fear, the total exclusion experienced in schools, villages and towns – because most of the Roma live in settlements – means that a lot of Roma people turn to some kind of criminal behaviour. This has to be changed. Health conditions have to be improved too. Without this, there is no chance of a peaceful coexistence between Roma and non-Roma. 

However, this will take a very long span of time, a minimum of 20 years. At least two generations have to grow up before we see real results. And this is without mentioning trying to change people’s minds.

Could you recommend specific steps? 

There have been so-called media programmes in the past 10-15 years to improve tolerance but I have not really seen the results. An article inciting hatred is somehow still more impressive and has a more long-lasting effect on the public than a half hour-long positive documentary on TV. 

This is why the emphasis is on the individual. Change can be achieved only by focusing on people’s minds and thoughts. You simply have to say no to hatred and acknowledge that it is in our children’s interest to live in a more peaceful and trustful atmosphere, where the two communities can count on each other. 

The number of Roma people living in Eastern Europe is very high. And their number is growing still. The prosperity of each country will largely depend on the individuals being able to tolerate and accept each other in everyday life. And this starts in people’s minds. 

Politics can do very little. Media can help much more. Although we have been looking for partners for a long time, I still expect help from the press. 

You mentioned that Roma primarily need jobs. Do you think that the initiative put forward by the mayor of Monor (in Hungary), which aims to make aid dependent on working, would ameliorate the situation of the Roma? 

I don’t believe this would help and moreover I believe it is harmful. As long as there is a 2000 forint (approximately €8) difference between the level of aid and the minimum salary, we cannot hope for a change. The aid is meant for those people who have no other chance. Roma in Hungary – and they also believe in this – can be helped by being given jobs – jobs for a real salary. This can make Roma tax-paying citizens. 

The European Parliament also said that a European Roma Strategy is needed. You played an important role in the fact that the EP accepted a contribution on this topic on the 31st January. On the 13th of July an international Roma conference was held in Budapest and participants restated this need. Have any concrete steps been made on the topic since then? Have the European institutions made any progress? 

Of course, and there are already some visible signs. I have been working for four years to achieve this. The atrocities in Italy and in other member states also, of course, contributed to it. The European Council understood that steps must be taken. 

Having been urged by the Parliament, the Commission now also admits that a European Roma Strategy is indispensable, because member states don’t want or cannot do anything. They have to be forced to step forwards. 

The Budapest conference will be followed by the First EU Roma Summit in September, where European political leaders and European Roma-leaders will agree on the content of the Strategy. 

The Commission prepared a deep policy paper, but unfortunately it does not bring too many good ideas. The Council will react on this paper in mid-December. I hope the Commission will get the mandate to prepare a European Roma Strategy with a stable financial background and that lays down minimum professional standards. According to the plans, the Strategy will have to be implemented – similar to the Lisbon Strategy – within 10 years. 

The European Commission however seems to be looking more towards emphasising ‘best practices’ as a means to drive member states. But I believe that the sanctioning of discrimination is needed and, as for professional questions, I expect the Commission to set minimum standards. 

I believe that this is important because the problem of the Roma is different in every single Roma community, in every member state. This means, that the Commission will not be able to lay down concrete measures. Nevertheless there is need for coordination at European level and I hope that the coordinators will operate under the control of the Commission President. 

Do you think that Roma organisations are active enough? Can they help the Commission? Do European institutions ask for their opinion?

There are shortcomings on both sides. The Commission is not consulting them properly. I also spoke up against this and the main aim of the Budapest conference was to correct this mistake. I invited the representatives of the European Commission to this event besides some 60 Roma leaders. They now have the possibility to exchange information in connection with the upcoming 16 September summit. 

However, I also see that Roma NGOs stand on weak professional ground and have few good ideas. This is especially alarming because it is the Roma who really know what they need in terms of planning, implementation and controlling. 

At the moment, there are no independent ideas, or if there are any, they do not arrive to the level of European NGOs. I myself am also operating an NGO in my office. I try to connect local initiatives with politics. We are also consulting academics and we do intellectual work on this topic, but we miss proposals from the Roma NGOs regarding their needs. 

On many issues, there is even no communication between the Roma. There is no inner consensus on questions such as child-beggars or early marriage. The reason for this is also that there are very few Roma intellectuals. 

As the European Roma Strategy is at our doorstep, I launched some programs for training Roma intellectuals and I also called together a professional group of academics. This second initiative has the role to work out solutions and implement them on national and European ground.