Romanian Foreign minister: These are shocking, unfair and unacceptable statements. Chief investigator Copenhagen Police: Romanians have no scruples. They will kill you for 100 krones

„These are shocking, unfair and unacceptable statements. They come from a Danish secondary zone and have been redrawn by Mr. Ove Dahl, spokesperson and chief investigator for the Copenhagen Police”, Romanian Foreign Affairs minister Teodor Baconschi declared in the HotNews.ro-RFI discussion on Monday, discussing with journalist Dan Tapalaga. This is the first time that the Romanian Foreign Office (MAE) takes a stand after chief investigator from Copenhagen Police declared last week, after Romanian citizen Marian Clita murder suspect in the case of a dead stewardess, that „Romanians don’t have scruples” and that they would kill even for a few euros. His statements have set the Danish press on fire, which read „Romanians are top criminals”.

Baconschi said that the statement has been made by a local police chief, and by a politician, therefore Romania should avoid international diplomatic incidents triggered by a statement made by an official of inferior rank.

„Indeed, these are shocking, unfair and unacceptable declarations. They come from a Danish Authority secondary sector and have been redrawn by Mr. Ove Dahl, spokesperson and chief-investigator of the Police in Copenhagen.”

„The gravity of this mis-mash and generalisations is obvious and it can attract unwanted effects in the public opinion from any member state. Of course we can and will engage, through our embassy in Copenhagen, in a political gesture to manifest our discontent.”

„But the background problem is another one. There is a certain Romanian crime rate in most member states. We should make more internal pedagogy, at the source. There should be a proper means of information regarding rights and responsibilities, if possible underlining responsibilities, in the towns and villages from where our co-nationals are leaving.”

„There is no way we can make preventive pedagogy with those already faced with a crime. But there is, nevertheless, a certain temptation of populism, which manifested internally during the last years and which made us indulgent any Romanian citizen abroad, regardless what he/she is doing. On the other hand, we encouraged a sort of persecution complex among these co-nationals which don’t mind their business, who don’t respect the laws of the host state and for whom we felt sorry many times, through mass-media or internal political actors. Now, we need to see very clearly if we’ve got this issue; member states’ police forces, Europol, magistrates, work attaches need to make a team effort to compartmentalise even stricter traffic networks as well and to trigger a responsibility signal.”

„I believe that managing migrants fluxes and crime needs to be achieved thorugh a much more intense inter-state and inter-institutional effort. (…) nevertheless, I don’t think we should exaggerate the importance of this crime phenomenon.”

Background

Ove Dahl, spokesperson and chief investigator for the Copenhagen police, has declared after the murder committed by Marian Clita (the assassin of anti-communist dissident Gheorghe Ursu), who savagely murdered a stewardess in a hotel in Copenhagen: „Romanians don’ have scruples. They will kill you for 100 Krones (15 euros). It is a culture completely different from ours. The biggest problem is the open borders, through which we are being invaded by Eastern Europeans. They commit bank robberies, break into homes, serious thefts, beg, break into stores – everything.” The statement has set the Danish press on fire, and even generalist daily papers like Belingske – the oldest newspaper in Denmark published since 1749 – read on first page: „Romanians are top criminals”.