Interview: Italy’s handling of Roma ‘clearly fascist’

In an exclusive interview with EURACTIV, Romanian Socialist MEP Adrian Severin hits out at Italy’s Interior Minister Roberto Maroni for calling for the immediate dismantling of Roma camps and the arrest of their inhabitants.

Severin, who is a former foreign minister and UN rapporteur on human rights, said European leaders should be more energetic in warning the Italian Government about hate rhetoric against immigrants. He said he was prepared to act as a whistleblower because in his view this is his “European duty”. 

“By not being xenophobic or racist, we, Romanians, are not the sick man,” Severin went on. Instead, he said the “sick” ones are those who want to transform such rhetoric into actual policies. “European ideas must not fall victim to this disease. That’s why we have to intervene quickly, like we did for the mad cow cases, for example,” the Romanian MEP stated. 

Severin, who is chairing the European Parliament’s EU-Ukraine delegation, also criticised the recent joint Polish-Swedish initiative on the ‘Eastern Partnership’ aimed at improving ties with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and particularly Ukraine. He said the idea “was launched without an appropriate description of the scope, of the means, of the reasons. And now everyone speculates”. 

The Ukrainians do not like the initiative, because they suspect it may be seen as a replacement for their EU accession, he commented. What’s more, given the circumstances in the country, denying Ukraine EU membership would also likely imply a de facto blockage of its NATO accession, he noted, pointing out that this had also been the case for all other Eastern European countries which joined both organisations. 

He called for the European neighborhood policy to be “revisited”, saying it is “inconsistent, unappealing and very much confusing”. 

On Moldova, Severin said this smaller country could progress faster, but that it must first decide if it wants “to Europeanise or Transnistrialise”. He expressed his fear that the current Moldovan authorities “want to create a nation of homo sovieticus,” illustrated by the fact that they insist their nationals speak a “Moldovan” language invented by Stalin. 

The Romanian MEP denied that his country was refusing to recognise Kosovo because it fears similar separatist moves in Transnistria. He believes it would be better if Kosovo was recognised by international law “only when it is ready to become a member of the EU and only within the European Union”.. 

But, as he points out, the European Parliament lacks any power to shape foreign policy, despite its often “audacious” ideas. Notably, referring to a recent session on Georgia  in the EP’s Foreign Affairs Committee, he harshly criticised the “ridiculous” gap between the bold statements of the committee and its lack of legislative power. 

“This capacity of the EP to be more outspoken carries with it the danger of being too emotional or superficial,” he said, adding: “In the rest of the world we are viewed as expressing the EU attitude”. He cautioned against falling back into Cold War stereotypes, saying: “We are starting to act like a rapid reaction force” without listening to all sides of the story. 

To read the interview in full, please click here.

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