EU fails on Roma integration

After the latest clashes between Roma and the French police, France's government announced its decision last Friday to dismantle an illegal settlement of Romanian Roma. The British expert on Romania, Tom Gallagher, analyses EU policies towards Roma in the daily paper Romania Libera: "In dealing with complex problems, the EU preferred to ignore the anti-social behaviour of many Roma and concentrate strictly on the discrimination against an entire social group. A host of NGOs has collected large sums of EU tax funds just in order to tell us that the relationships between the Roma and the rest of the community must be based on understanding, mutual acceptance, respect and equality before the law. More than enough adherents to a nomadic romanticism are also characterised by a negative view toward western civilisation. So they don't want Roma to be integrated, since this would require them to give up a large part of their own culture to adopt another culture that offers them more opportunities in life.”

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