Frattini under fire for defending Italy’s handling of Roma

The European Parliament has called on the Commission to clarify how rules on the free movement of citizens should be applied, criticising recent statements by Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini in which he justified Italy’s decision to deport Roma in a move to crack down on crime.

Despite opposition from Parliament’s leading centre-right EPP-ED group, Parliament voted a resolution, on 15 November, criticising “the recent statements to the Italian press by Mr. Franco Frattini, a Commission Vice-President, in connection with the serious incidents in Rome”.

The vote came after Frattini supported a decree – issued by the Italian government after the alleged murder of an Italian woman by a Romanian of Roma origin – that allows the deportation of migrants from other EU countries if they are considered a threat to public safety. 

“What has to be done is simple,” Frattini had commented. “Go into a nomad camp in Rome for example, and ask them: ‘Can you tell me where you live?’ If they say they do not know, take them and send them home to Romania. That is how the European directive works,” he said. He had also urged Italy to pull down the camps to prevent the Roma from returning. 

MEPs said his comments “were contrary to the spirit and the letter of Directive 2004/38/EC”, which deals with the right of EU citizens and their families to move and reside freely within the territory of the EU. They called on the Commissioner to fully respect this directive.

Romanian Roma organisations said the Commissioner’s declaration was “stupid” and “simply unacceptable” coming from someone charged with fighting for the civil liberties of European citizens. “If the Commissioner can’t do his job better, resign or keep quiet,” demanded Executive Director of the European Roma Grassroots Organisation Valeriu Nicolae.

Frattini defended his statements, stressing that Italy had acted within the directive, which “also contains provisions that allow member states to protect public order and public security”. He insisted that he was against any form of discrimination or intolerance towards EU citizens but would support “member states who lawfully protect citizens”. 

Centre-right Chairman Joseph Daul backed the Commissioner, saying he “firmly condemned the personal attack against” him and the “tasteless distortion” of his words. But liberal and Green MEPs accused Frattini of making “sweeping generalisations about specific nationalities or ethnic groups” and of adding “confusion and ambiguity” to the debate on free movement in Italy. 

The final version of the resolution “rejects the principle of collective responsibility and emphatically reaffirms the need to combat every form of racism and xenophobia and all forms of discrimination and stigmatisation based on nationality and ethnic origin”. 

It also calls on the Commission “to act without delay by pursuing an overall strategy for social inclusion of Roma”. 

The adoption of this resolution came in parallel to another vote in which MEPs gave full backing to Commission plans to extend the Schengen passport-free zone to the eastern member states that joined the bloc in 2004 (EURACTIV 9/11/07). 

The Czech leftist MEP Miloslav Ransdorf had criticised the “double standards” applied throughout the history of Schengen zone enlargements, saying that while letting in Austria, Finland and Sweden in 1995 had been a mere formality, the latest newcomers had been subjected to “embarrassing controls and evaluations”. 

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