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Ref. DC 134(2016)

National minorities: Council of Europe body calls on Italy to better protect Roma, Sinti and Camminanti

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Strasbourg, 28.07.2016 - The Council of Europe Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) has called on Italy to take urgent steps to elaborate and adopt a specific national legislative framework for the protection of Roma, Sinti and Camminanti communities.

In its Fourth Opinion on Italy published today together with the governments’ comments the Committee urges Italy to make sustained and effective efforts to prevent, fight and sanction the inequality and discrimination suffered by Roma, Sinti and Camminanti : improving their living conditions, in order to allow residents to move out of the so called “nomad camps” to adequate social housing.

Roma, Sinti and Camminanti remain socially and economically marginalised. Resolute measures are also needed to combat early school dropout and underachievement, ensuring that all children have full access to mainstream education.

Moreover, the Committee acknowledges that Italy has continued its efforts to protect persons belonging to national minorities, who are referred to in the domestic legal order as “historical linguistic minorities”. Within the decentralised structure of the Italian Republic minority rights are protected and implemented in an asymmetric way within the national territory and not all minorities have benefited on an equal basis from the rights laid down in the Framework Convention. The protection of rights guaranteed under the State Law on Protection of Historic Linguistic Minorities of 1999 is further strengthened in a number of regions such as Valle d’Aosta/Vallée d’Aoste, Friuli Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, by the statutes of autonomy and other national and regional legislation.

While a general climate of openness and tolerance prevails in Italy towards persons belonging to recognised, long-established linguistic minorities, there has been a noticeable increase of xenophobia and anti-Gypsyism within society in recent years. While the use of discriminatory, intolerant, and racist language in political discourse and in parts of the media has become more commonplace, a number of verbal and violent physical attacks against centres for asylum seekers have been recorded. The mandate and status of the Office for the Promotion of Equal Treatment and the Fight against Racial Discrimination (UNAR) do not guarantee its independence.

Finally, the Committee asks the authorities to take immediate action to improve access to radio & television programmes, to high-speed Internet in remote areas and to printed media for linguistic minorities.

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The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities provides for a monitoring system whereby the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers, assisted by the Advisory Committee, composed of independent experts, evaluates the implementation of the convention.

Contacts :

Tatiana Baeva, Spokesperson/Press officer, Tel. +33 3 88 41 21 41

Giuseppe Zaffuto, Spokesperson/Press officer, Tel. +33 6 86 32 10 24