Post
by Richard66 » Tue Nov 06, 2007 3:39 pm
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.
