Pierre Lellouche: It is not France that needs to integrate Romanian gypsies / The Rroma issue needs to be a condition for Romania's accession to Schengen 

French State Secretary for European Affairs, Pierre Lellouche criticizes the Romanian government for the way it acts in the Rroma community problems. In an interview for RFI, he accuses Romanian authorities that they do not fulfill their promises and says France has reserves regarding Romania’s accession to Schengen in 2011. Lellouche said that European states feel responsible for what their citizens do and Romania is the first responsible for Romanian Rroma.

Together with the Romanian government we set up a committee to deal with the Rroma issue, Lellouche said. He explained that he had two conduct two official trips to Romania because at first Romanian officials did not even want to discuss the issue.

The French set up a plan to help Romanian Rrom to return to their country and offered them a plane ticket and 300 euro to return to Romania. Last year 8,000 persons returned in Romania through this program but many Romanians returned.

Romania receives annually 20 billion euro for cohesion funds and I would love to see some of these money be used for the Rroma, Lellouche said. France is not the only country to have such issues. The same happens in Spain, Italy and Belgium.