EU Schengen: Romania and Bulgaria were denied entry

alexa · Dec 15, 2013

Part 1/3

Rainman05 said:
But even this measure was not met with great popularity in Romania.
Deportarea romilor în Transnistria - Wikipedia

While it is in Romanian, you can go to google translate and translate this:

It basically means:
Protests for the saving of the rroma.
The measures of Ion Antonescu were not met with support from the population [etc etc]... there were many gestures of solidarity [...]... The Royal House protested [...] King Micheal refused to sign the order for deportation (not that it mattered, he had no real power left, sure he had legitimate powers but not in truth since RO became a military dictatorship) etc.

So not only were less than a 1/10th of the gypsy population abused during the regime,

I do not disagree with this.

Rainman05 said:
and despite them not doing anything to benefit the war effort, they were left alone. Only those who were criminals and who were actively detrimental to the war effort were deported and jailed.

It does not change the reality that this is not true..

Rainman05 said:
So your statements are BS.
Especially when you say this:

Do not trust what is on the net. Since there weren't half a million gypsies in all of Romania. How could half a million die if there weren't even as many? Stop lying.

I said up to half a million in total. If you understood that as my saying that half a million Romanian Roma were killed then you misunderstood me. I meant as I said all Roma. I accept I should have said 'from all countries' to make that clear to you.

Rainman05 said:
No it is not a slurr. PC crazies claim it is but they are idiots so why should I care what they have to say. For 700 years since they lived in this territory and in all of europe, they were gyspies. They aren't anything else now.

if you don't leave quote, I have not a clue what you are talking about.

Rainman05 said:
Link provided above... there is literally PLENTY of documentation out there. I can provide you with at least 2 books, one in english. I'll mail it to you. It contains actual documents from that era.

You probably can but there is plenty of information on the net from good sources. I do not find what you say to be what is widely reported, some of which I have put in here. There is also widespread sources that Romania is not being honest about this situation and still harbours such views and most importantly that the young have not been accurately educated.

During this last century, Romanians have experienced tragic deceptions under consecutive dictatorships. Denying the savage annihilation of half of Romania's Jewish citizens represents an additional distortion of that country's history. This denial is totally incongruent with the foundation of a free society, a society toward which Romanians are presently striving. True freedom is not guaranteed by economic advancement alone, but also by the ethical and spiritual values the citizens embrace. This assertion is best illustrated by the short-lived history of Nazi Germany, a highly technological society, but one that was morally bankrupt. Romania must therefore be cognisant that the struggle for freedom and the building of a free market economy must not proceed at the expense of its national honour and integrity.
…......

The fact remains that the young generation of present-day Romania must take the opportunity to come to terms with its real historical legacy. Therefore, it is essential that Romanian schools and universities institute a program whereby the students are educated about the roots and consequences of racial and religious prejudice. No other subject matter is more appropriate for such an agenda than Holocaust Education. This type of program could help young Romanians become aware of, and vigilant toward the perils of chauvinistic nationalism.

The Current Situation in Romania

alexa · Dec 15, 2013

Part 2/1

Rainman05 said:
A lot of gypsies work on the black market. Everyone who works on the black market gets what he bargains for. The minimum wage law applies to all, so to say that they're LEGALLY discriminated against is again, BS.

I can't for the moment remember where I got that from. However, people only work in a black market when they cannot get a proper job and it said that the Roma only received half the pay of other Romanians something you have not denied. Your idea about all Romanians receive minimum wage however appears not to be true. According to this Italian site more than half Romanians receive below the minimum wage

Romanian workers earn below minimum wage - West

I have missed your point about education before and to be honest am too tired to deal with it in detail. I think most Roma now attend primary school, if not in Romania in most places. The parents find it helpful that they can read and write. On the other hand a I have read of a massive amount bullying against them including from teachers but obviously this requires more attention which I cannot give now and is also involved with everything else. In some countries of course a ridiculous number are only offered an education in Special schools.

Rainman05 said:
Yes, a university paper from DePaul university.. a social science paper. Social science is a joke of a science and even if it weren't, it's one persons' opinions.

My degree is in Social Sciences. You are wrong in thinking it is 'just one person's opinion'. Social Science does recognise that everyone has their values and their values will always give a slant to what they wrote. However those values are backed up by reputable information. You are quite at will to disagree with his conclusions but the facts are real. I do though accept that that article had a stronger slant due to the person having spent half their life in Romania. Hence both more of a feeling content and more intimate knowledge.

Rainman05 said:
My engineering degree is worth more than whoever's PHD in social sciences. So if we have to knock educational levels, I win.

No. On monetary reward you possibly win but given that you are living in Romania and the author the West, I would imagine in this case that is not correct.

Rainman05 said:
I know exactly what slavery was in Romania and as I said above, the majority of gypsies were free people. This is why they maintained their roaming cultural identity. This is why most haven't become sedentary. If the majority had been slaves, then they would have been sedentary and abandon their nomadic lifestyle, which they haven't.

I have dealt with this in part 1. They were not free people even if 2/3rd's during slavery were nomadic and most were if they possibly could be, as it was much better than the type of slavery the others experienced. By WW2 the vast majority were not nomadic.

Rainman05 said:
Yes.. they were brought by the mongols and then further sent out by the ottomans in their conquests. It is not irrelevant, it is quite relevant. The majority were brought as slaves but some had useful traits. For instance, the gypsies who made their home in anatolia have been recognized as having good jewelry working skills. But the ones who got moved around with the ottoman armies and then left in the territories they conquered weren't.

I have to some extent dealt with this in part one. I have seen no evidence that they were brought in by the Mongols but instead evidence that they instead initially had freedom which the article I provided also said. Are you suggesting the only ones who had good skills were the ones who got involved with the Ottoman's

Rainman05 said:
I never claimed that I freed whatever % of the gypsy population had been enslaved (the majority were free, as I said before) nor that I enslaved them.

Not sure what that refers to. Possibly I used the word 'you' rather than Romanian. My apologies

Rainman05 said:
They weren't given compensation? what do you call the emancipation programs that were started immidatly after being given freedom?

The vast majority were given no compensation. The slave owners however were given compensation for losing their slaves. The vast majority nothing.

Rainman05 said:
And as I said before, they were slaves because Romania had slavery legal, well, sort of a slavery. And this was because we were under the influence of one of the major empires, Ottomans in the south, tsarist in the east, and the question of Transylvania is a whole different topic. Once Romania became a kingdom and became independent, slavery was outlawed forthwidth and emancipation programs were put in place, but they had limited success.
The Roma in Romanian History - Chapter III. Emancipation - Central European University Press

The Roma were not enslaved by the Ottoman's.

Rainman05 said:
They were put to work as factory workers and given the chance to earn a living, some managed... a lot didn't. To those that were sedentary prior to the emancipation, they were given some property to live off of. And other programs.

Hmm

After the horrors of World War II, communists, practically all of them gadje, seized power in Eastern Europe. Gadje law backed by gadje-controlled police forced many Roma to begin leading sedentary lives and to take jobs in factories and other enterprises. Significant numbers found their way into the mainstream of society, still proudly Roma, but also proudly employed, proudly residing in their own apartments, and proudly sending their children to school.

But in these dictatorships, the Roma remained as disenfranchised as anyone else who was not a Communist Party member. Popular prejudice continued to lurk in the shadows. As a result, most Roma people continued to live in squalor. Many continued to work the most menial and least paying jobs society had to offer. Many did not attend school, and many of those who did attend found themselves in segregated classes receiving substandard instruction.

Roma in Political Life in Europe: Introduction | Open Society Foundations (OSF)

again I missed this before. I am aware that Communist countries had some different policies towards Roma but this fits in with what you said about factory work. I think that when I did look at this they were only offered education in Special schools or in schools for only Roma but that may have been in Russia.

I would also question how many of those who did well did proudly speak of their Roma identity. The reality that Roma's who achieve tend to do so through hiding their Roma identity is itself a problem as by doing that they do not provide a role model to other Roma and cannot work to improve their position.

alexa · Dec 15, 2013

Part 2/2

Rainman05 said:
Slavery by definition is a state where one has no rights. so saying: omg, slaves have no rights, is kinda redundant.

Romania wasn't independent until 1848... and it wasn't really Romania until 1859. And it wasn't even a kingdom until after and we secured our independence from the Ottomans or the Tsarist empire. (Ruskies)

I have dealt with that within Part 1/

Rainman05 said:
I really won't talk about the jews no matter how much you try and bring them into the topic. If you want to talk about jews, we can do so in a separate topic.

I am only mentioning Jews with reference to Romanian denial of the holocaust, both Jews and Roma

Rainman05 said:
The internet may have useful info but it is also full of crap so don't trust it all. Like I demonstrated above, in the first topic especially, it's BS most of what you read. Like half a milion gypsies died or whatever because there weren't that many gypsies in Romania.

I have already dealt with this in part 1. You misunderstood what I wrote and I accepted I could have been more clear.

Rainman05 said:
I do not share the idea that nationalism is automatically evil. It's not. There is a good way to do nationalism and a bad way to do nationalism. Clearly, I'm not advocating for the bad way.

You said ethnic Nationalism can be good. When there are people of different ethnicities in a country the only way to go about ethnic nationalism is by some method of getting rid of the others as we saw in WW2 in Romania and in other countries.

Rainman05 said:
When you have nothing left to say,

Trust me I have plenty to say but other things to do as well.

Rainman05 said:
yell RACISM

I am not aware of doing this but as you insist I would point out that you do seem to try to give that impression

Well... ethnic arabs and africans are virus. And there are hundred of thousands of them in Sweden.

http://www.debatepolitics.com/europe/179811-rape-epidemic-sweden-w21-2.html#post1062617161

I do think you are misinformed on many things. I have dealt with the persecution of the Roma WW2

A couple of other things you have said which come to mind are that you said Romania accepted such people as Gypsy kings when the Roma do not and generally believe Roma politicians are corrupt.

Another thing you made a big mention about the Roma only being 2% while outside estimates have it as being up to 10% certainly far more than 2% which makes their representation in parliament far lower than it should be.

Romania has not dealt with the needs of the Roma post slavery, post ethnic cleansing since Communist rule. The Roma are wary of bureaucracy with good reason.

This is a brilliant article concerning that which also is worth a read for all of us in thinking about how much democracy we have

Roma Rights 2012: Challenges of Representation: Voice on Roma Politics, Power and Participation - ERRC.org

The Roma are not represented proportionally in any section of Romanian government - either in Parliament or at local level.

This is an excellent paper which was produced some years ago setting out what needed to be done in order to get the Roam involved constructively in advancing their own issues and in politics

http://www.ndi.org/files/1629_ro_romaparticip_022803.pdf

This has not been done. It particularly speaks of the need for change to come from below up - not from some self appointed Gypsy kings or corrupt and self hating politicians.

It also mentions a deep mistrust within the Roma of The Party of the Roma. Not very encouraging for political democracy that a law since has made it impossible to them to create any other political parties!!

Now while it has been true that there has in the past been a deliberate intent by Romania and other countries to discount the number of Roma living there and that may be part of it, it is speculated that the real reason is because Roma feel the need to deny their identity in the hope of better opportunities and they remember that the census which was taken around WW2 was used to select them for deportation.

Take a look at this and tell me if you were a Roma whether you would have much faith in your politicians or think there was anything but the most robust scapegoating of them for every wrong in Romania

Being a "Gypsy": The Worst Social Stigma in Romania - ERRC.org

Rainman05 said:
I'm not going to say that since you don't live a post-communist country, you can't talk about communism, but communism is an ideology and it was implemented differently at different points in different countries. Some countries came out of it less scared, but still scars that will remain there forever... some with wounds so deep that they still hurt.
Now to put communism in the same branch as anything else, that really makes me angry because it shows people have such a poor, such a poor understanding of it that it boggles the mind.

I admit I did question whether I had been racist to Eastern Europeans after I wrote that. It was based on what you write and the attitude of an East European on another forum. However whether you like it or not, during communism you did not have access to free thought and information on which to come to that. I am sure that I heard somewhere that the holocaust was not much dealt with in the USSR. Particularly when looking at Romania it has appeared that Romania on several sources has not accepted it's past. To be frank the connecting it with communism was more a get out clause.

Rainman05 · Jan 5, 2014

alexa said:
I am really bad a grouping things together.

Since you were so uncivilized as to not group things together as I had attempted to do in the previous comments, you leave me with little choice but to do the legwork and arrange all the crap and nonsense you spew in an orderly fashion. The reason for my late reply is because I took a break from foruming and even now i'm on a "maximum 45min a day" schedule for foruming. Anyway. lets get down to business.

1) the Roma, correctly called gypsies because that's what they are.
a)No, I am not calling them the mongol hordes, I am saying that they were brought to Europe by the mongol hordes and especially in Wallachia and Moldavia by the mongols as slaves. Some remained slaved even after the mongol hordes and especially the pechenegs were driven out of Wallachia and Moldavia, most were given their freedoms. As I stated above in previous comments.
And yes, they were enslaved by the ottomans much like ALL OTHER ETHNICITIES under the ottoman empire were. Greeks, bulgarians, serbs, romanians, and all the people of the middle east. It took the British and French bullying the ottomans to make the ottomans renounce slavery in the XIXth century, first to renounce slavery of white people and then of all colors.

b) the gypsies never fought for anything in their entire lives... correction, never fought for anything worthwhile in their entire lives. The only fighting a gypsy does is against other gypsies or on helpless innocent people to rob them or kill them. But they never fought in the past for independence, even of their own, or alongside romanians in the countless wars for independence we fought. And this is shown today because they still don't fight for integration or anything past superficial greed and desires.

c) Education. The gypsies in Romania have preferential education and reserved slots in all schools at all levels, from kindergarten to college. Those slots mostly remain vacant because no gypsies send their kids to schools, at least not for long. They prefer to keep their young strapped to their chests, drugged with a bit of alcohol when they beg for money, or the ones who are of 8 years or older, to send begging by themselves.

d) This is mostly to clarify the position on the so-called genocide of gypsies. You have repeatedly and incorrectly said that half a million or half the gypsy population or whatever BS you said, was exterminated in Romania, when in truth, only around 30k gypsies were deported during WW2 to transnistria because they were criminals who attacked and murdered women, children and elderly and stole from them whatever basic supplies they had. A move that was done by marshall Antonescu and even then, criticized heavily by the Romanian population and king Micheal. And the reason gypsies did this is as I said, while young Romanians went to fight against the USSR for unity and to save our brethren in Moldavia, the gypsies didn't fight because they don't fight for anything except their own narrow interests. So the gypsies plundered the land.

e) the gypsies are given seats in parliament that require no voting in proportion to the population. They're just given to the Gypsy party
Romanian ethnic minorities parties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
All these groups have specially reserved seats as given to minorities. the people who are there have the same rights as any other parliamentary except that he doesn't represent anyone because he didn't get voted by the people of a district as it were. To me, this seems like a travesty of my rights as a Romanian citizen. Who the hell are those people and how can they speak when they aren't elected by anyone?
But w/e, let them have it. They're all a bunch of racists like you and the whole multi-culti idiots so let them have it if that makes you all happy. When you'll see that your opinions and the way you view things are wrong, it will be too late for you but maybe then you'll realize you're all idiots and let the real men and real women who know how to solve problems and run things deal with the crippling BS you push.

As to representation. The gypsies don't vote. They have the right to vote, but they don't because as I said, they like to whine and scream about how unfair it is but instead of working to change the reality of their situation, they prefer to get handouts and get sympathy points. And i recognize your inherent racism by demanding that they be "fairly represented". I don't think our politicians should be elected due to their ethnicity or their race. It's already bad enough as it is. The UDMR and hungarian separatists already trick and mess with the minds of ethnic hungarians in romania, taking their votes and seeding just mistrust and anger and hate in return because they run on ethnic separatism and ethnic nationalism. And this is allowed to happen despite, DESPITE the fact that our constitution FORBIDS political parties to exist that are founded on ethnic principles. But the gypsy party in Romania and the magyar parties as well are ethnicly based political parties and it's disgusting.

Even the term "rroma" or romani people is a PR scam. It doesn't exist. It's all a lie, a deception made by gypsies like the gypsy king, who aren't particularly smart people, to outwit and fool people like you. And they manage to do so because even smart people can be very stupid.

Canell · Jan 5, 2014

Rainman05 said:
Even the term "rroma" or romani people is a PR scam.

Yes, you should know! The word is an embarrassment for Romania since the two have nothing to do it each other, but sound very similar.
I personally prefer the original Greek term "αθίγγανοι (asingani)" which translates as "the untouchables". Gipsies (tsigani) are the filth of society as the article explains. Traditionally they are trash collectors (many of them are such to this day) but when hungry - thugs, thieves, fraudulent criminals and so on . I'd guess that's how they got in Europe - by collecting the scraps behind the Mongol hordes and the Turks (stripping bodies, clothes, eating leftovers, trashing villages, collecting whatever they could find or steal, etc). You know those little fish that surround the shark and eat leftovers? Well, you got the idea.

Rainman05 · Jan 5, 2014

Canell said:
Yes, you should know! The word is an embarrassment for Romania since the two have nothing to do it each other, but sound very similar.
I personally prefer the original Greek term "αθίγγανοι (asingani)" which translates as "the untouchables". Gipsies (tsigani) are the filth of society as the article explains. Traditionally they are trash collectors (many of them are such to this day) but when hungry - thugs, thieves, fraudulent criminals and so on . I'd guess that's how they got in Europe - by collecting the scraps behind the Mongol hordes and the Turks (stripping bodies, clothes, eating leftovers, trashing villages, collecting whatever they could find or steal, etc). You know those little fish that surround the shark and eat leftovers? Well, you got the idea.

in Romanian, the word for gypsy is very similar to tsigani, it's tigani (the "t" is a special "t" that is pronounced tz or ts too). Romanians have worked pretty hard for unity and independence of all traditional Romanian territories, and much sacrifice was made. The only reason Romanians exist as romanians is because the identity given to us by the Romans when they conquered Dacia about 1900 years ago, we held that identity dearly. It is because we see ourselves as the heirs of the Romans, similar to how many other people do, that we exist as a people despite being oppressed and conquered by many others -> the bulgarians during the 9th century, the mongols, the pechenegs ,the hungarians, the ottomans, the russians, the communists all came and sought to break us and kill us, and all failed and we are still here.

The reason gypsies are called as such is because that's their bloody name.
And it's not like the word "gypsy" has to always mean something bad. The greatest "showmen" and entertainers of the gypsy people entitle themselves in their works with Gyspy.
Inima de tigan -> gypsy heart ; is/was a very popular tv show... a sort of a soap opera only theming gypsies. There are gypsy bands that sing gypsy folk music.

And ofc, politically & culturally, they have gypsy tribunals which THEY called gypsy tribunals. Yes, they are legal to a point and are there to "deal" with civil issues from the gypsy community. For instance, how much money should one family pay to another family for whatever transgressions they did (like stealing)... or if a family that marries their son to another family's daughter (at the age of 9 or 10 usually... so basically sold), if the dowry is sufficient. In some cases there is even the payment of "blood money". If a family kills or injures a member of another family, and they seek reconcilliation, it's done in a gypsy tribunal, usually through a payment of some sort -> money or children to be married. Ofc, the criminal is going to go to prison according to romanian law, but that is not done for the benefit of the criminal or the deceased/injured party, but for the benefit of their rather extended families. Now of course, to you or me, it would seem like they're putting a price on someone's life, you know, one family paying $$$ because one of them killed one from another family... but hey, that's their life and their culture.

Ofc, the greatest challenge the gypsy tribunals had to face was last year when the gypsy king died and he had 2 sons who both wanted the crown. And according to the gypsy king's testament, the eldest got the crown and 30% of the properties and money had had, and the other got 70% or smth like that. But they, his own children, especially the eldest who inherited the crown, wasn't happy with JUST 30%. So despite the testament of their father, they split the crown in 2, now we have 2 gypsy kings, and also split the money 50-50. And this was done in accordance and IN a gypsy tribunal. Now to sensible people, what this basically was, is 2 children violating their father's last wishes and proving, again and again, that gypsies hold nothing to be dear or important other than how much money they have. To me ofc, the gypsy king and the crown always was a joke, but i at least believed up until a point, that they, the gypsies, held it as being important. But no, they don't, for money, they split it in half.

German guy · Jan 5, 2014

Rainman05 said:
From the perspective of an Eastern European Romanian I shall say what I feel about the Schengen area and this development.

If I'm not mistaken this was the 2nd time we were denied entry to Schengen... or was it the first time and the other time was the fact that we were denied the adoption of the euro or smth along those lines.

This news is pretty old but I had decided to investigate and collect as much info as I could so I can make an informed opinion on the issue.

let me start off by saying that I don't mind this. Some people, especially politicians, were outraged or pretended to be and indeed... it may have some damaging effects on the Romanian economy, but not really. I understand why last time Belgium (or the netherlands) were opposed to Romania's and Bulgaria's entry into Schengen and why this time France vetoed the idea. And I agree. romania and bulgaria don't deserve to be part of schengen. Now regardless of the motivation for the repeal, whether the motives were legitimate... or whether there were less than honorable, it doesn't matter, RO and BG don't deserve to be part of the Schengen space or the eurozone (and yes, I know one doesn't imply the other, but I'm painting with a broad brush here). There is still a lot of work to be done and a lot of effort to be made on multiple levels.

As an individual citizen, I don't mind having to show my passport or my ID card when I cross the border from RO to Hungary. In fact, that's how it should be. I find that to be normal. I am used to having to carry ID on me the moment I leave my house so it seems fitting that the moment I leave my country I should have ID on me at all times. In fact, I wouldn't have it any other way.

However... if the EU is going to deny RO's and BG's entry in Schengen due to the fact that we're unsuitable... do tell me how you permit Hungary to continue to exist as part of the Schengen area. After all, Hungary is further down the crapper than both RO and BG in all perspectives. Economically, civil rights, democracy, etc.

I'm just feeling that there's a bit of a double standard.

Now on the matter of the gypsies. Before entry in the EU, Romania has been criticized that we don't know how to integrate our gypsies into Romanian society. In fact, for the purpose of joining the EU in 2007, the Romanian govt spend billions on welfare for the gypsy communities from all over the country. An investment that yielded NOTHING in return. no progress in their integration, no success stories, nothing. It was basically money thrown down the toilet. The housing projects made specifically for the gypsies in various cities... houses and apartments basically given to gypsy families for nothing, now, just 6-7 years later, look like they've been through a warzone. The school legislation has for almost the entire post-communist period been very favorable to gypsy minorities granting them special privileges including reserved seats that only they could occupy if they went to school. this has yielded no return in any manner. The fact that they had a gypsy king as representative of the gypsy minority since 1996 hasn't helped. the fact that gypsies have reserved seats in parliament hasn't helped. There was some controversy regarding the reserved seats during the late 90's but not anymore. For the past 10-12 years, there is no problem... or rather, the only problem is that the gyspies don't send their kids to school.

So now we come to today, 2013, and every single god damn month something about gypsies happens in Europe. Either they're being paid to leave from France or they cause problems somewhere... or they are involved in some criminal activity, or they migrate en mass to England for the olympics or some god damn ****ing thing happens. And thanks to political correctness and describing them as romani instead of gypsies, everyone draws the conclusion that all gypsies are romanian. Which is of course, untrue... only ~3% of the population of Romania is ethnically gypsy and by numbers, we have a very small gypsy community. There are more gypsies in the USA and Brazil then there are in Romania. Of, by % of population, Romania is higher than them. But here's the issue.
We've been criticized for our innability to integrate them, but when push comes to shove, nobody can. Not a single god damn country can drastically or significantly improve the gypsy situation in their own country so what do they do? They pawn them off to another country.

I'm just sick and tired of the cheap discussion. And again, I don't blame France for not wanting RO and BG in Schengen. That's fine, I agree for numerous reasons, we're not ready to be part of Schengen. I don't even blame the French for wanting to export the gypsies out of their own country. I get it, that's fine. But then don't ****ing come along and try and lecture Romania on it's handling of the situation when France, and for this matter, the EU as a whole, is unable to deal with the problem. If some EU nations finds the solution to make the gypsies lives better and succeeds, then it will be a model for the rest of us. But there is no solution. No easy solution. No complicated solution. No expensive solution. There is really, no ****ing solution.

And if there is no god damn solution, quit the yapping. There is no solution. No program or law that any nation can adopt that will make things better in any noticeable amount. So lets stop pointing fingers and yelling like morons and let's put the thinking caps on our ****ing heads and think about it.

As the scarecrow in Oz said: people with no brains can do an awful lot of talking.

There has already been one big controversy within the new German government: About the EU rights for Romanians and Bulgarians. The right-wing CSU (Bavarian sister party of Merkel's CDU, desperately strifing for an opportunity to get some profile), proposed to limit access to the German labor market for Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants. The center-left SPD in the government coalition immediately attacked the CSU for their "xenophobic attacks".

Now as you put it, I'm not sure what to think of it. I just know that the German weekly "Die Zeit" painted the CSU demands as mere xenophobic populism, as they showed the true numbers: The rate of Romanians immigrating to Germany exploiting the German welfare system is well below the average of EU foreigners, and only ca. 3% have been found to abuse the German welfare system, which is lower than the number of Germans doing so. In general, the Romanian immigrants in Germany are well below the average of both immigrants in general and Germans too when it comes to welfare abuse and application for special services, and their unemployment ratio is well below that of average Germans.

Due to that, "Die Zeit" concludes that Romanian immigrants are mostly well-qualified immigrants who contribute a lot both to our economy and labor market, rather paying into our welfare fonds than exploiting them. So they confirm the CSU scaremongering about Romanian immigrants (which evokes the impression most, if not all of them are gypsies), are nothing but that, scaremongering based on primitive xenophobia.

What do you think about that?

Rainman05 · Jan 6, 2014

German guy said:
There has already been one big controversy within the new German government: About the EU rights for Romanians and Bulgarians. The right-wing CSU (Bavarian sister party of Merkel's CDU, desperately strifing for an opportunity to get some profile), proposed to limit access to the German labor market for Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants. The center-left SPD in the government coalition immediately attacked the CSU for their "xenophobic attacks".

Now as you put it, I'm not sure what to think of it. I just know that the German weekly "Die Zeit" painted the CSU demands as mere xenophobic populism, as they showed the true numbers: The rate of Romanians immigrating to Germany exploiting the German welfare system is well below the average of EU foreigners, and only ca. 3% have been found to abuse the German welfare system, which is lower than the number of Germans doing so. In general, the Romanian immigrants in Germany are well below the average of both immigrants in general and Germans too when it comes to welfare abuse and application for special services, and their unemployment ratio is well below that of average Germans.

Due to that, "Die Zeit" concludes that Romanian immigrants are mostly well-qualified immigrants who contribute a lot both to our economy and labor market, rather paying into our welfare fonds than exploiting them. So they confirm the CSU scaremongering about Romanian immigrants (which evokes the impression most, if not all of them are gypsies), are nothing but that, scaremongering based on primitive xenophobia.

What do you think about that?

The whole hysteria about "drying out" the welfare of another state is pretty much BS. Most romanians who emigrate to other countries go there to work, and by that I mean, they leave Romania with a work contract in hand or on route to an interview. After 2007 when we joined, a lot of Romanians who left for Spain and Italy left to work as well, either permanent jobs or seasonary work for since back then, you could earn more by working in the fields of spain than by working as a teacher in Romania, and this I find is very tragic, but regardless. Also, most romanians who emigrate to other countries learn that language... or at least know english. And most Romanians who know German most likely have qualifications. Nearly 5000 doctors left Romania to work in the UK or Germany from 2010-2012. 2000 more just last year. IT specialists leave Romania by the tens of thousands. To put it in perspective, when i finished college we were 100 new electronic engineers, English group graduates. Over 10 of them are already in other countries like Canada, Australia, Germany and Ireland.

This doesn't mean that there aren't cases where people end up sucking up welfare and contributing nothing. This is the case in Romania too. There are people who take unemployment benefits and they also work as undocumented workers in construction, getting a paycheck there as well as getting unemployment benefits. I'm pretty sure that such a practice exists in Germany as well and I'm sure there are romanians who do that but it's always a tiny minority.

links:
Brain Drain of Doctors Worsens in Romania :: Balkan Insight
(Page 4 of 23) - Romanian Brain Drain: Who is Leaving and from Where? authored by Minca, Elisabeta.

Around 1,700 doctors left Romania to go work abroad in the first eight months of this year, a figure that is steadily increasing, the Colegiul Medicilor, a professional organisation for doctors, said yesterday.

, about half of the 5000 graduates of Romanian universities in computer science emigrate each year

Same numbers of electronics engineers... more for construction engineers, more for architects, etc.

Canell · Jan 6, 2014

German guy said:
3% have been found to abuse the German welfare system, which is lower than the number of Germans doing so.

Why do countries give welfare to people who are not even their citizens (but just residents) is beyond me. :stars: