A Roma camp is evicted in Bron, France, on 16 April 2015. Serge Mouraret/Demotix. All Rights Reserved.
In recent months there has been a great deal of discussion about forced migration and the distinction between who is a refugee and who is an economic migrant. In the case of people fleeing from Syria, the media discourse has changed significantly: many news outlets now refer to them exclusively as refugees. Yet while this is an important change, it has latently reinforced the dominant dichotomy of refugees, who ‘legitimately’ seek protection, and ‘undeserving economic migrants’, who do not since they are presumably mobile ‘by choice’. European Roma, who are often portrayed as social benefit tourists in the media, have long served as a stereotypical example of the undeserving economic migrant. However, much like those crossing the Mediterranean now, the degree to which the movement of European Roma has been ‘free’ is open to debate.
Fear of invasion
The Free Movement of EU Citizens Directive (Directive 2004/38/EC) came into force on 30 April 2004, one day before the so-called ‘Big Bang EU Enlargement’ that created ten new EU member states from mostly post-socialist candidate countries. This directive permits all EU citizens to move to and reside in member states other than their own for up to three months. However, over the past decade—particularly after Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007—we have witnessed heated media and political debates on whether this right should remain unconditional. The primary impetus for this discord has been the position of Romani EU citizens, who move freely between their own post-socialist country (usually Romania) and countries in Western Europe (e.g. France, Italy, Spain and the UK).
