What Romanians think: Hungarians are „diligent”, Gypsies are „lazy, thieves”

Romanian and Hungarian citizens in the Central Romanian city of Cluj overwhelmingly trust and get along with each other, but the overall image of the relations between Romanians and Hungarians, on one hand, and Romanians and Rroma (Gypsies) on the other hand is rather bad, a new poll shows.

The poll, aimed at evaluating the perception over ethnic diversity in probably the most ethnically diverse city in Romania, was produced by the Center for Ethno-Cultural Diversity Resources in collaboration with the Cluj-Napoca City Hall.

The poll shows 88% of Romanians and Hungarians alike say they get along well with members of other ethnic groups. And the two comunities have the same level of trust in people of different religion (71%) and different ethnicity (58-60%).

When it comes to qualifications of other ethnic groups, Romanians say Hungarians are diligent, united, good. Only 3.8% of Romanians say Hungarians are chauvinist.

Hungarians, meanwhile, say Romanians are diligent, united and friendly, while only 2.9% of them see the nationally dominating majority as lazy.

But both communities had only negative qualifications for the Rroma community, seen as lazy, inclined to thievery, dirty, malevolent and tricky.