What seemed to be just a cracker, fueled for years by the developed EU members, has turned into a real bomb about to explode in Rome. Romanians are perceived in Italy as the greatest criminals in Europe. Now they are what the Turks were in the German eye ten years ago... Or, if you please, they are the way we have categorized our gypsies, ever since they settled here together with their canopies, at the beginning of time. But Romanians are the gypsies of united Europe, more recently...From the Viennese swans, devoured with their feathers on right after the 90s to the big thefts in the capitals of EU states, Romanians have become the outcast of developed societies. As for us, we keep on replying and defending ourselves by claiming it is the gypsies who make fools of ourselves, because of their children begging for alms in overcrowded crossroads, because of their females who lift their long skirts on the streets of London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid and Rome. We say the hats and moustaches of the Roma people crowd in the EU and the West has therefore become a modern Wild West of gypsy gangs or Romanians behaving like gypsies... We defend our needs and nation by categorizing all the Romanians who steal abroad or commit other crimes as gypsies. As for those Romanians who work abroad to earn a living, we call them "strawberry pickers". But what about us, the Romanians in Romania? When travelling abroad, we are ashamed to say we are Romanians and prefer saying we are Poles, Hungarians, Czechs and so on. Well, every Romanian thinks as follows: "Let Europe take the criminals! They have been preaching about discrimination and democracy. Now let them see how it is like!" And this is so. Criminality is has been diminishing in Romania. Famous gangs who used to dread Bucharest and more cities have left abroad. Those protecting the gypsies' rights have kept on reproaching us that, when a Romanian commits a crime, the press reports "a certain person committed theft", but when a Roma person commits it, the report goes: "A gypsy called... killed in cold blood." It is true that, because of their hot nature and disdain for any law, the gypsies have an appetite for crimes. But it is no news that there are also honest, hard-working and cultivated gypsies. Just as not all the criminals in Romania are gypsies, not all the criminals in EU states are Romanians. These are two sides of a coin. In Italy, for instance, no television fails to specify "Two Romanians killed...", "A Romanian driver killed a woman crossing the street..." or other cases of the kind. Western criminals?! Things are different with them... Meaning what? That they kill more delicately, more nobly, with cold-blood? Criminals are citizens of the EU too. But Romanians are different! This is obviously the developed countries' response to an invasion of Romanians. But the latter aren't gypsies only, it is a figure such as 2 million Romanian migrants that mentions it. It is also obvious that not all of them are criminals, but only 1%, maybe. Given its great democracy and its hundred year old principles, the West may not repatriate, discriminate or drive them away... Then the natural response emerging is nationalist fury against the "boors". How can free circulation be opposed, since the developed EU states promote it? But if one starts a campaign against the Roma people, such as the one of London publications, then it is easy to ask that Romanians should need visas to travel... Of course one can't ask that the gypsies or the Romanian potential criminals should need special visas. Therefore all of us, Romanians in Romania, will be at fault... for all the West's murders. This is actually an overt higgling, political bargaining disfavoring any honest Romanian. The petty Romanian higgling is replaced with the great EU higgling.

Bogdan COMARONI