Italië hervat acties tegen Roma ondanks aanstaande stemming EP over resolutie (en)
Italian police on Tuesday (7 September) resumed the dismantling of Roma camps near Milan and Rome and transferred some of the inhabitants to temporary housing, with the mayor of the Italian capital pledging to accelerate the demolitions.
Milan police tore down barracks and tents housing some 250 Roma, who "left without creating any problems," a police spokesman told AFP. Social services in the northern Italian city offered temporary housing to the displaced, but only two dozen women and children accepted the offer.
The city's right-wing mayor Riccardo De Corato said the crackdown, which has seen 315 settlements levelled since 2007, has allowed him to "contain the influx of Roma whose status is illegal." Currently there are some 1,200 Roma in Milan, compared to 10,000 three years ago, he noted.
Similar actions were carried out on the outskirts of Rome on Tuesday, with police saying demolitions will continue throughout the week.
Rome's mayor Gianni Alemanno on Monday said police would tear down some 200 settlements at the rate of three or four each week and transfer inhabitants to 10 official camps overseen by local authorities.
He spoke after meeting French immigration minister Eric Besson in Paris, just as France is trying to shake off EU i and international criticism for deporting Roma back to Romania and Bulgaria.
Mr Alemanno said he would accelerate the action against illegal camps after a three-year-old Romanian died in a fire in a camp near Rome in August. He added that Rome could host a maximum of 6,000 nomads in about 10 "legal" camps, compared to the 7,100 currently living in the city. He did not specify what would happen to the rest.
Meanwhile, in Strasbourg, euro-deputies on Wednesday are voting on a resolution condemning the politicisation of the Roma issue by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who linked a rise in crime to the existence of the irregular settlements.
Speaking in plenary on Tuesday, Livia Jaroka, the only Roma MEP in the EU legislature, stressed the right of freedom of movement of citizens, while acknowledging it is "not unconditional."
"We the European Roma refuse the political misuse and interpretation of our issues," she said. A European solution, instead of political ping-pong between capitals, is the only way to solve the problem of the some 12 million Roma living on the continent, she added.
Her own party colleagues - Ms Jaroka is a member of the centre-right European People's Party from Hungary - tried to make political capital on her intervention however, by saying their group is the only one containing a Roma MEP.
The EPP is in a delicate position because Mr Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi are both part of its political family.
The group - which is the largest in the parliament - has tabled its own text on the Roma issue in which Mr Sarkozy's actions are not criticised. The centre-left and Green groups, however, are pushing for stronger wording.