Soon after the political elections that took place in Italy in April 2008 were won by the Coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi, a growing number of people became aware of the measures against the Roma minority the new Italian government was discussing and of the growing feeling of intolerance towards this minority.  Its emblem is the shocking picture published by many international newspapers of two Roma girls drowned in the sea near Naples in the summer of 2008. Their dead bodies were taken on the beach and covered with a towel while waiting for an ambulance. And then something stunning happened. Normal beach life simply went on as if nothing noteworthy had occurred. In the picture, a couple nonchalantly ate a picnic while looking on at the scene. Another threw a frisbee just a few metres away from the two corpses.[1]

Unfortunately, hostility against Roma populations is not a recent phenomenon in Italy and the security measures adopted by Berlusconi’s government are just a new development in a deep-rooted problem.[2]

 Genesis of the Current Situation

Although racism and xenophobia against Roma in Italy have increased since the election campaign of 2008, they had already been present for at least 20 years. During and after the war in the former Yugoslavia, Italy faced massive migration influxes of Roma from the Balkans and particularly from Romania. The Italian government’s initial liberal policies towards the entry of these groups into Italy were not accompanied by measures to provide them with shelter and work. As a consequence, more and more campsites (both legal and illegal) have been built in the suburbs of most Italian towns.[3] Their creation was, at the basis of the hostility that grew against both immigrant and Italian Roma starting in the 1990s. The local inhabitants felt insecure in the presence of their new “dirty, illiterate and begging” neighbours and this growing feeling of insecurity provided an opportunity for extreme right wing parties. Security increasingly became the magic word of the members of parties such as the Northern League (Lega Nord), who used Roma and immigrants as scapegoats.

The main problem regarding Roma and Sinti is that they still do not possess official minority status (as do other twelve minority groups living in Italy, such as the German-speaking minority, the Slovene or the Greek one), since, according to the Italian Parliament, they are not linked to a specific part of the Italian territory and therefore cannot be recognised as a linguistic minority. The Italian government explained that: “The basic criteria for the label of ‘linguistic minority’ depend on the stability and duration of the settlement in a delimited area of the country, which is not the case for Roma populations.”[4] The nomad theory is used as the justification for excluding Roma and also to reinforce the popular idea that they are not Italians and do not belong to Italy.  As a matter of fact, 60% of the Roma living in Italy are Italian citizens and almost all of them are sedentary.

 Nonetheless, the last twenty years have marked a change in the history of Roma living in Italy. The earlier decades were simply characterised by a generalised series of racist stereotypes but the radical change, which occurred in more recent times, consists in the manipulation of the old stereotypes as useful political tools. Anti-Romani feelings were spread through apparently objective publications and newspaper articles to gain political consensus. Discrimination of Roma through social exclusion and physical violence is not only an Italian phenomenon, but is common to all European countries where Roma groups are present. Nonetheless, where Italy departs from many countries in Europe is that while other governments at least have tried to promote the inclusion of Roma, the Italian Government has, on the contrary, encouraged racial animosity and exclusion[5].

During 2007 several cases of crimes committed by either Roma or Romanian citizens have reinforced even more the idea of a parallelism between the Roma migration influxes and the increase of crime rates and have stirred waves of xenophobia by civil society, media and politicians.

Roma and Sinti under Silvio Berlusconi’s Government

Silvio Berlusconi’s “People of Freedom Coalition” (Popolo della Libertà), which includes the post-fascist National Alliance (Alleanza Nazionale) together with the Northern League won the Italian general elections in April 2008, acquiring a substantial parliamentary majority. Two surprising results of these elections were that the Northern League, despite its strong regionalist orientation, obtained 8.3% of the votes and that the Communist and Green Parties (Rifondazione Comunista, Partito dei Comunisti Italiani and Verdi) did not reach the required threshold of 4%.[6] The fact that these parties, which have traditionally shown pro-migrant positions, are no longer in Parliament and that the Northern League has obtained so many votes has clearly marked a turn towards social exclusionary policies.

In fact, Berlusconi’s election was followed by an explosion of racism throughout Italy with a rapid acceleration of evictions and harassment by authorities.

The Government adopted on 21 May 2008 a series of legal and policy measures, the so-called “security package”, proposed by the Minister of Interior Roberto Maroni, which are explicitly discriminatory against Roma. The most relevant ones for this article are:

• Law decree No. 92 on “Urgent measures in the field of public security”
• Amendments and integrations to Legislative decree No. 30/2007

According to Law decree 92, both EU and non-EU citizens will be expelled from Italian territory if sentenced to more than two years imprisonment. Moreover the status of irregular immigrant is an “aggravating circumstance” in Italian criminal law: criminal offences committed by irregular immigrants carry the possibility of a one-third increase in the punishment compared to the same offences committed by persons with legal status.

Expulsions of EU citizens are in contradiction with Council Directive 2004/38/EC on EU citizens’ freedom of movement and residence. The right of free movement is a very important one for EU citizens, but is subject to limitations on the grounds of public policy, public security and public health. Nonetheless, these measures should comply with the principle of proportionality and should be only based on the personal conduct of the individual concerned, which is not the case in this law decree, as it sets a general threshold of two-year-sentence, which leads to automatic expulsion. Moreover, the fact that the status of illegal immigrant is now an aggravating circumstance in Italian criminal law is a breach of the fundamental principle of equality before the law, “as it penalises people for who they are rather than for what they do.”[7] Moreover, Law decree 92 does not specify whether the aggravating circumstance in criminal law also concerns EU citizens who are not regularly registered.  The text does not exclude this possibility and, therefore, this provision is in contradiction with the principle of proportionality because it would impose penalties on EU citizens that are a third greater in comparison with penalties imposed on national citizens and is as well contrary to the principle of non-discrimination on the grounds of nationality contained in Article 12 TEC.

According to Legislative decree 30/2007 all EU citizens wishing to reside in Italy for more than three months will have to prove that they have sufficient economic resources, coming from legal activities, to sustain themselves and their families. This is stated as well in the directive on EU’s citizens freedom of movement but the same directive points out that Member States may not lay down a fixed amount which they regard as “sufficient resources” but must take into account the personal situation of the person concerned. As well in this case EU Law does not allow automatic or collective expulsions, since these may be possible only after the examination of every single situation.

Therefore, these measures do not comply with EU law, as they violate Articles 12 and 13 TEC on non-discrimination, Council Directive on EU’s citizens freedom of movement and Council Directive on the principle of equal treatment.

Only a few weeks later, the Italian Government, in no way intimidated by protests and condemnations against the discriminatory measures it had recently undertaken, proceeded with its anti-Roma campaign with a measure that more than the others shocked the international public opinion: a systematic ethnicity-based census through fingerprinting.

EU Reactions

The legal measures adopted by the Italian Government led to a widespread concern among civil society and institutional actors at the national, European and international level.

The first EU institution that reacted to the Italian events was the European Parliament. On 20 May 2008 a debate on the situation of Roma in Italy took place in Strasbourg. At the debate, the Commissioner for Social Affairs Vladimir Špidla declared that Italy’s plan to expel EU citizens is an extreme measure and a limitation of a fundamental freedom of the Treaty, since a decision to exclude can only be made on a case-by-case basis. Moreover, at this debate the Hungarian MEP Viktòria Mohàcsi, after having carried out field research in Italy, reported that the situation of Roma in Italy was one of the worst in Europe and called on the Commission to start an EU Roma Strategy. The European Parliament as well adopted a Resolution on the census of the Roma on the basis of ethnicity in Italy on 10 July 2008, in which it urged Italian authorities to refrain from collecting fingerprints of Roma people and from using those already collected.

The European Commission, at the beginning, simply posed a number of questions to Italy about the census of Roma communities, including the purposes for which fingerprints were collected, the legal basis for doing so, the modalities for storing fingerprint data etc. but in September 2008 Commissioner Jacques Barrot raised his doubts on the legal compatibility with EC law of the Italian “security package”, particularly with regard to the rules on the automatic expulsion of EU citizens, and added that if a solution in conformity with Community law was not reached in a very short timeframe, the Commission would launch infringement proceedings.

Conclusion

Although reports and criticism by international bodies seemed, at one point during the summer of 2008, to have stopped some of the provisions proposed by the Italian Government such as fingerprinting of Roma, the extremists of the Northern League in the Government showed no change and their xenophobic and racist approach still goes on. 

Italian civil society, including NGOs, trade unions and churches, has tried to oppose the “security package”, but the power of Berlusconi’s coalition is too strong and the political opposition in Parliament is quite weak. The Government’s attitude to the protests can be summed up by the rude statement of Senator Maurizio Gasparri (People of Freedom Coalition): “We don’t give a damn!”[8], as a response to the criticism of the UN Refugee Agency against Italy’s measures on migration.

Only a strong, coordinated international movement of democratic forces could produce the pressure that is needed to change the situation. This could be done by a more continuous and organised pressure of the EU institutions and of the Council of Europe.

The EU could, for example, determine the existence of a serious breach of the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for fundamental rights and freedoms and could therefore, according to Article 7 TEU, suspend Italy from certain rights, e.g. voting rights in the Council. Moreover, the European Commission could as well launch an infringement proceeding against Italy.

However, the EU, despite the initial criticism, has still not taken real action against the Italian Government. Has this happened because the country involved is a big, powerful and senior Member State? Is the risk of a new “Empty Chair Crisis” not worth the respect of fundamental rights in all Member States?

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[1] D. McDougall: Why do Italians hate us?, in The Guardian, 17.08.2008.

[2] P. Colacicchi: Ethnic Profiling and Discrimination against Roma in Italy: New Developments in a Deep-Rooted-Tradition, Roma Rights Journal, No. 2, 2008, p. 35, www.errc.org

[3] H. Scicluna: The Life and Death of Roma and Sinti in Italy: A Modern Tragedy, Roma Rights Journal, No. 2, 2008, p. 10, www.errc.org

[4] Italy: Fifteenth Periodic Report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, 26.03.2006.

[5] R. Kushen: Exclusion as State Policy, Roma Rights Journal, No. 2, 2008, p. 1, www.errc.org

[6] M. Merlino: The Italian (In)Security Package – Security vs. Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights in the EU, CEPS CHALLENGE Research Paper No. 14, 2009, p. 3, www.ceps.eu

[7] L. Trucco: Legal and Policy Developments in the Condition of Migrants and Roma in Italy, Roma Rights Journal, No. 2, 2008, p. 32, www.errc.org  

[8] La Repubblica: Migranti, Frattini frena La Russa “L’Onu sbaglia ma va rispettato”, 17.05.2009.