The First Roma Summit amidst Controversy
This month in Brussels, the first ever Roma Summit gathered in the light of the controversial approval of Italy’s Roma fingerprinting scheme. The often overlooked Roma community now represents one of the largest ethnic minorities in the EU and faces persistent discrimination through stereotypes and prejudices. On September 4th, a commission spokesman reported that the EU approved plan to fingerprint all Roma is aimed at identifying persons “who cannot be identified in any other way” and excludes the collection of “data relating to ethnic origin or the religion of people,” said a commission spokesman. As a retort to this explanation, Hungarian Roma liberal MEP Viktoria Mohacsi stated that “the fingerprinting procedure seemed to be applied exclusively to Roma, which I cannot interpret otherwise than a discriminatory treatment targeting one specific ethnic group.” The criticism of the approval of the Fingerprinting Scheme did not stay outside the walls of the Roma Summit, held on the 16th of September, as Roma representatives at the Summit strongly criticized the EU for failing to do enough for the “largest ethnic group facing extreme poverty and discrimination on our territory,” according to European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. Some even wore t-shirt to the Summit, calling the fingerprinting scheme as “Ethnic Profiling”. The aim of the Summit was to promote a firm commitment to tackling concrete problems and to create a better understanding of the situation of Roma across Europe. More that 400 representatives of EU institutions, national governments and parliaments and civil society including Roma organisations gathered discuss and speak on the topic. The Roma Summit successfully fostered discussion and has started a continuous discussion to include and appreciate the Roma culture and community.
