Frankrijk wil dat Brussel ingrijpt in kwestie uitzetting Roma (en)
EUOBSERVER i / BRUSSELS - After weeks of carefully staying in the background of the Roma expulsion question, the European Commission has been shoved to the forefront of the issue after French Prime Minister Francois Fillon called on President Jose Manuel Barroso i to co-ordinate the subject at the EU i level.
While warning member states to ensure that any expulsions are done on a "case-by-case basis" and in line with European law, the commission has in the past few weeks consistently argued that it has no responsibility in the area.
But in the wake of an avalanche of criticism in recent days of the French policy of round-ups and expulsions of Roma from human rights groups, the Council of Europe, French protestant churches and the Pope, Mr Fillon sent a letter to the EU executive, calling on Brussels to "to improve co-ordination with the Romanian and Bulgarian authorities" and "accentuate initiatives within a European framework."
Issuing the letter after an unscheduled meeting of France's interior, Europe, immigration and justice ministers, the French prime minister said he wants Mr Barroso to emphasise EU action on the subject and for the bloc to harmonise its practices regarding the Roma question.
In response on Wednesday, the commission's justice spokesman, Matthew Newman said "The commission remains quite open on this issue," and that justice and fundamental rights commissioner Viviane Reding i has been following developments "very closely".
He announced that Ms Reding has now ordered the drafting of a "forward-looking" report on the subject, surveying both the legal and political aspects of the matter.
The report will be published next week.
Besson: ‘Not an anti-Roma summit'
In a related development, stung by accusations that France was organising an "anti-Roma summit", Eric Besson, France's immigration minister, issued a communique on Wednesday stressing that the upcoming meeting of interior ministers from major EU economies was to cover broader issues than the Roma subject, in particular irregular immigration.
"No point of order is specifically dedicated to this or that nationality or ethnic community," he wrote.
It is instead "a working seminar on the themes of asylum and the struggle against irregular immigration," inviting "those ministers responsible from the principle European countries concerned with these problems."
He also announced for the first time that a US cabinet member has also been invited to the informal bilateral meeting, which is to take place 6 September in Paris. French officials from the Immigration Ministry told EUobserver they did not yet know who in particular they had invited from Washington.
Italian, German, UK, Spanish, Greek and Belgian ministers have been invited, but Belgium is ready to boycott the meeting if it becomes apparent that the meeting will be a "France-Italy show" intended to give the impression that the EU is giving its imprimatur to the Roma expulsion policies of France and Italy.
The meeting appears to be politically toxic to many invitees, with the UK and Germany saying they will send minor officials instead of ministers and Greece understood to be unnerved as well. Spain for its part has also not decided whether it will attend.
Mr Besson also said that the summit is just one of a series of meetings on migration in the coming weeks, notably a ministerial conference in Brussels from 13-14 September and a conference of police chiefs of the EU6 (Germany, France, Italy, Poland and the UK) from 21-22 October organised by Paris aiming to put in place a "Euro-Atlantic clandestine immigration task-force".