I wonder if there would be a way to buy a piece of desert in Egypt for those people who embarrasses us; they would have to assign them the hardest work, declared the Foreign Minister of Romania, Adrian Cioroianu, a State television to show their rejection of the Gypsy ethnic group. The incendiary nature of this intervention stoked the controversy raised by a decree adopted by the Italian Government, which would be allowed to expel citizens of the European Union (EU) considered hazardous, in clear reference to Romanians settled in Italy. The words of the Minister blame the minority Roma, just one and half million of the 20 million people who reside in the country, the bad image that Romania projects abroad. Italian politicians responded by this provision to the cruel murder of a woman at the hands of a Romanian immigrant of Roma origin, that he intended to steal the bag. The initiative devised by Walter Veltroni, Mayor of Rome and likely successor to Prodi in the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, has not left anyone indifferent. The replica has not been expected from countries and agencies involved in the conflict.

The most immediate was the emergency meeting that took place in Rome between the Romanian Prime Minister, Calin Popescu Tariceanu, and his Italian counterpart. After this encounter, which sought to jointly tackle the crisis that has affected the Romanian community in Italy – more than half a million people-the waters have become settles in a river very agitated by the pre-election environment in which they live Italians. Thus, after the warning from the European Commission on justice, which dictated that any expulsion of a citizen of a Member State of the European Union must be individual and appealed to justice, the Government headed by Giorgio Napolitano has softened its stance and expulsions will be punctual. Prodi and Tariceanu were agreed to form a joint police force and by request to Brussels from structural funds for creation of programs of social integration for immigrants without resources within the EU. This political approach will be nail burning to which will have to grab more than two million Romanians living abroad, 10% of the population.

A presence since the first of January, the date on which Romania became a part of the EU, has multiplied in countries such as Spain and the own Italy due to free movement enjoyed by Community citizens. In Romania the salary base, according to Eurostat data, is about 300 euros gross per month; While the average wage of a worker in the EU is 2.041 euros. Per capita income barely reaches 30% of the Community average. Economic inequality has resulted in an exodus of Romanian citizens to other countries in search of more favourable working conditions. Since the fall of communism in 1989, one of every ten Romanians has left South-Eastern Europe in search of a life better. The initiative of Veltroni in Italy or xenophobic Cioroianu, who has not been relieved of his post, words have returned you