One of the obstacles to finding any solution to the Roma problem is the widespread indifference, often bordering on hostility, towards the Roma in Romania and Bulgaria. In both countries, the general attitude is one of collective denial, not just by the public at large, but also within civil society, the press and the political class. In Romania, few people felt outrage upon hearing that President Traian Basescu had called a female journalist trying to interview him a "stinking Gypsy." A former foreign minister – Adrian Cioroianu - regretted publicly that he was not allowed to send delinquent Gypsies to some remote spot in the Egyptian deserts (a probable allusion to the origin of the word "Gypsy", from "Egyptian"), while the leader of the ultra-nationalist Romania Mare party, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, remarked that if the French sent the Roma back to Romania, then "Romania should send them back to India." euobserver/news/30927
Posted on: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 18:13:26 +0000
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