Around the Euroblogosphere the treatment of the Roma in Italy has become an issue. A Handfull of Euros has a good rundown of the situation, the Turko Files and the European Tribune write about the generally bad treatment of the Roma in Europe, the Yellow Stars Blog strongly condemns the Italian Government and Gravitas Free Zone has a very interesting take. Excerpt:
The western Europe countries with a relatively high Rom density are amongst the more tolerant, while east Europe countries, with the higher number of Roma, are slightly below average but show, interestingly enough, a positive trend (higher Rom density = high tolerance). Therefore, the claim that in Italy there is a reaction to the too high number of Roma starts to look a bit fishy. What’s so special about Italy, then? Somebody particularly malignant could be tempted to answer that Italy is the only EU country with a prime minister with a dominant position in the mass media and a very strong interest first in creating dissatisfaction with the previous government and then in distracting the public from more important issues (for which he has no clue about possible solutions).
