Italy to begin expulsion of "dangerous" EU migrant

Dawie, one fatal flaw in your argument is that while EU citizens can travel to other member states to evade jurisdiction, a Scot criminal or a Welsh one cannot do so while in England.

For example, if a English was caught driving without and insurance and a Driving Licence in London and jumped paying the fine to N. Ireland where he was apprehended, he would suffer the same punishment as he would in any part of the UK. On the other hand, had he gone almost the same distance the other direction, he would have safe and dry. So, there are different levels of free movement as well.

The Romanian in question is also a very wanted man in Romania!

Dawie wrote:

JAJ wrote:

Dawie wrote:So with that logic would you also be against people with serious criminal records from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland being allowed to live and work in England?

The difference is that these people are British citizens.

Those from other EU states are not.

They are EU citizens, but I guess that's the whole argument. Just how much say should the EU have over who can enter individual member's countries.

Quite. If you believe in the European Community as a group of interdependent sovereign nations, then clearly free movement of persons should not extend to those with serious criminal records.

Sovereign nations have to deal with their home grown criminal element (born and naturalised) but not necessarily those of other countries.

On the other hand if your vision is that of a country called Europe, character issues would not be a bar to free movement.

I am not sure if the idea of a country called 'Europe' is feasible within the next century.There are too many historical/cultural issues/baggage between the member states.
Now it seems they have started on the course to have the balkan countries to join up without reflecting too much on the issues they have with the new entrants.

EU positive on Balkan entry bids
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7080895.stm

The EU expects all western Balkan countries by the end of 2008 to have signed initial deals paving the way for eventual entry into the bloc.

The announcement affects Serbia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania.

The EU welcomed Serbia's co-operation with a war crimes court and urged entry hopeful Turkey to improve human rights.

The Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) is regarded as the first step to full EU membership.

There is a lot of hypocrisy in this argument. We are talking of Romanians in the sense they are citizens of Romania, but, as most Romanians will point out to you (and are very quick to do so, principally when applying for jobs), they are Gypsies, or, as we must now say in PClese, Roma. They have their own values and culture and have given us many things of great value. I'm thinking of Flamenco, of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies, of Gheorghe Enescu's Romanian Rhapsodies and when I think of Romania I'm thinking of Ionescu, of Angela Gheorghiu and of my godmother, who, before the coming of Communism, lived in a castle in Romania (or so I always believed).

The thing is that the EU is all about free movement of workers and allowing that people can travel from one country to another. It has nothing to do with the free movement of criminals and tramps. I have come across several foreign tramps in Italy. One of them we all would like to trace to his home country: some say Germany, some Austria, some England, but no one can identify him. he is a bit of a nuissance, but not particularly dangerous, so I don't believe he has ever been expelled. What we are talking about are people who are coming to Italy with the intention of commiting crimes. They start by declaring falsely to be self-sufficient or present forged work contracts. Can anyone imagine an EU citizen going to another EU country, establishing himself in a shanty town, with no knowledge of the language, with no skills whatsoever and going around the city asking for handouts? Everyday I have to hear people asking me for alms in foreign accents.

I don't know offhand the exact figures, but Italy is inhabited by around 55 million people and so far they calculate the number of romanians to be 550,000. The last figures I saw for the EU was that there were around 4 million people exercising treaty rights (this was way before Romania joined). Where is the proportion?

I never take the bus, but people who do so tell me that at times crowds come in the bus, not a single one of them paying fairs. Maybe a month ago the police had to intervene because passengers could no longer take their bus to work. At a certain stop it was boarded by whole groups of Romanians who wrought havoc. I work at a language school and lately we have had strange people coming in and looking around. When surprised they are not even able to reply to our questioning.

I would also add that the Romanian police are collaborating with the Italian police in dealing with this problem, as this shames a whole country of law-abiding people. These Romanians who are now being deported are no more representative of Romania than a British yob is representative of the UK.

A principle of the EU is that EU citizens in another member country should not be treated any differently to how that member country would treat its own citizens. Although this is not a law or a declaration as such, it is an ideal.

However the spirit of this ideal seems to be have been bent and twisted according to the political agendas of individual member countries and political pressures.

Be that as it may, E.U Commissioner Franco Frattini seems to indicate via some controversial statements that Italy is well within it's rights to expel romanian criminals inspite of protests from Romanian government.

http://euobserver.com/9/25081/?rk=1

'

'Franco Frattini, the EU commissioner in charge of security and justice, argues that Rome's action was in line with the bloc's rules on citizens living in other member states.

"What has to be done is simple. Go into a nomad camp in Rome for example, and ask them: 'Can you tell me where you live?' If they say they do not know, take them and send them home to Romania. That is how the European directive works," he said, according to the UK daily Telegraph.

He also urged the Italian authorities to pull down the camps to prevent Romanians from returning while suggesting that Bucharest "cannot say they will not take them back, because it is an obligation that is part of being a member state of the EU."'

archigabe wrote:I am not sure if the idea of a country called 'Europe' is feasible within the next century.There are too many historical/cultural issues/baggage between the member states.
Now it seems they have started on the course to have the balkan countries to join up without reflecting too much on the issues they have with the new entrants.

EU positive on Balkan entry bids
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7080895.stm

The EU expects all western Balkan countries by the end of 2008 to have signed initial deals paving the way for eventual entry into the bloc.

The announcement affects Serbia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania.

The EU welcomed Serbia's co-operation with a war crimes court and urged entry hopeful Turkey to improve human rights.

The Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) is regarded as the first step to full EU membership.

I would dearly love to see Albania get into the EU, but I fear it won't be for a good while yet. Ah, the idea of my husband's relatives being able to visit us without needing a visa....

Frattini is right and EU law stands behind him. I quoted above the relevant articles form Directive 2004/38/EC.

If tomorrow I were to stop working in Italy and start committing rape and murder instead I'd be sent back to the UK in the first available plane and quite rightly so.

The idea keeps me on the straight and narrow path!

Dawie wrote:A principle of the EU is that EU citizens in another member country should not be treated any differently to how that member country would treat its own citizens. Although this is not a law or a declaration as such, it is an ideal.

I'm not sure that's rigth - there is freedom to move to exercise Treaty Rights, but not to go and live in another country and just claim benefits, for example.

Seems like Turkey's back in the doghouse till they get over their 'insulting turkishness' laws.

I find the UK's postion that full E.U membership for Turkey would bring reform and not the other way around, to be quite interesting to say the least!

Ban on free speech keeping Turkey out of EU
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 821160.ece

A growing number of prosecutions against writers and academics is damaging Turkey’s case to become a fully fledged member of the European Union, an annual assessment report said yesterday.

The country has made little progress in the past year and its failure to end torture, improve minority rights or guarantee freedom of expression were all highlighted as significant stumbling blocks to EU membership.

Britain joined the European Commission in arguing that only the offer of full membership would bring real reform inside Turkey, but President Sarkozy Sarkozy of France, has led calls for the Muslim nation of 71 million to be offered only associate membership.