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ROMANI CRISS, Bucharest, Romania
Repatriation of Romanian citizens from other states, during month of October 2002
-documentation report, follow up of the Sibiu Declaration ( 23 August) of the Roma NGOs of Romania and of the Warsaw joint Declaration of Roma Ngos of French and Romanian Ngos ( 14 September) on the current trends of international mobility, asylum seeking, repatriation of Roma in Europe, drafted in co-operation with the OSCE ODIHR Contact Point on Roma and Sinti Issues-
...
ROMANI CRISS, Bucharest, Romania
Repatriation of Romanian citizens from other states, during month of October 2002
-documentation report, follow up of the Sibiu Declaration ( 23 August) of the Roma NGOs of Romania and of the Warsaw joint Declaration of Roma Ngos of French and Romanian Ngos ( 14 September) on the current trends of international mobility, asylum seeking, repatriation of Roma in Europe, drafted in co-operation with the OSCE ODIHR Contact Point on Roma and Sinti Issues-
CRISS work in progress, Bucuresti, 13 October ,2002
I. The case of repatriation from Switzerland of the Romanian citizens ( mostly Roma) who ask refugees in Switzerland coming from territory of France
State of facts
On October 3, at 10:50, a charter flight from Geneva ? Switzerland landed on the Baneasa Airport in Bucharest, transporting a group of 40 people repatriated from Switzerland?s territory, of whom 12 children, 14 men and 14 women. Most of the repatriated persons reside in Bucharest, the Voluntari locality and Videle locality in the county of Teleorman.
Romani CRISS representatives were present at the Baneasa Airport on October 3 to gather data on the process of repatriation of the Roma expelled from Switzerland, as regards the observance of the legal stipulations and the fundamental human rights and freedoms.
The point of view of Border Police officials
According to commissioner Nicu Vaduva, the chief of the Baneasa International Airport Border Police, ?the persons were expelled because they did not have any travel papers? The first information we have received indicates that this is a case of illegal border crossing and illegal residence on the territory of another state. The legal procedure for this kind of cases is currently being applied, trying to establish the route of each of these persons towards Switzerland, whether they had legal documents and travelled legally.?
He also said that ? the expelled persons will remain within the Baneasa Airport until their true identity is established and the elements related to minor offences or illegalities are checked, according to the legislation on illegal border crossing and illegal residence on the territory of another state.?
On October 11, a Romani CRISS team have been to the locality of Videle( south-east of Bucuresti) to interview some of the repatriated persons.
The report will be completed with information ,on October 13 .
II. The Legal basis of the actions of repatriation of the Romanian citizens from territories of other States.
The Agreements on the Readmission of the persons in illegal situations, concluded by Romania with Switzerland and France
II.1 Readmission Agreement between Romania and Switzerland
The Readmission Agreement between the Romanian Government and the Swiss Federal Council, and the Protocol for the implementation of the Agreement were concluded in 1996 and published in the Official Gazette of Romania no. 119, Part I, of June 17, 1996.
According to article 2, paragraph 1 of the Agreement, on ?Readmission of Romanian citizens?, ?the Romanian authorities will readmit without formalities the Romanian citizens who are in illegal situations on the territory of the Swiss Confederation and whom are considered for sending back by the Swiss authorities, even if they are not in possession of a valid passport or identity papers, if it is proven or presumed that the person in question has a Romanian citizenship.?
Art. 2, para 2 stipulated that the proof of the Romanian citizenship is made with the following documents:
? valid passports of any kind;
? other valid travel documents, issued by Romanian authorities;
? identity papers, provided they are valid and complete;
? military status papers.
Para 3 of the same article stipulates that the presumption of Romanian citizenship is correct if the following are presented:
? driving licenses;
? job papers;
? sailor papers;
? photocopies of one of the above-mentioned documents;
? credible information provided by the person in question;
? convincing statements given by witnesses, especially of Romanian citizenship;
? the knowledge of the Romanian language.
According to article 2, paragraph 4, ?If the Romanian citizenship is presumed, the Romanian Embassy in Switzerland will issue , for a fee and without delay, at the request of the Swiss relevant authorities, the necessary travel documents for the repatriation of the persons who have to be readmitted.?
The implementation of the Readmission Agreement is made through a Protocol concluded between the Swiss Confederation Justice and Police Department and the Romanian Interior Affairs Ministry.
The Protocol, through its 16 articles, establishes the formalities that have to be made to implement the stipulations of the Agreement and transmit personal data, and the point of transfer for the readmitted persons.
II.2 Readmission Agreement between Romania and France
The Agreement between the Romanian Government and the French Government on the readmission of the persons in illegal situation, was concluded out of the wish of the two parties to ensure a better application of the directions regarding the persons? movement, based on the observance of the rights and guarantees stipulated by the laws and regulations in force, according to the international treaties and conventions and the preoccupation to fight illegal migration.
According to article 1 of the Agreement, ?Each contracting party readmits on its territory , at the request of the other contracting party and without formalities, any person who did not meet the entrance conditions or does not meet the residence conditions any longer? if it was established or presumed that the person has the citizenship of the requested contracting party.?
Article 3 of the Agreement points out that ?? the consular authorities of the requested party issues at once and for a fee travel papers allowing the return of the person in question,? and according to article 4 ?the expenses related to the transport of the persons whose readmission is requested to the border of the requested contracting party are borne by the requesting party.?
According to Article 11, para 3, the stipulations of the Agreement do not infringe upon the application of the stipulations of the agreements on the protection of human rights, of which the two states are members.
According to art. 12, para 3, the Agreement ??is valid for three years and will be subject to an agreed renewal for equal periods of time.
II.3. Other aspects of the international migration-repatriation of Romanian citizens phenomenon: the French-Romanian Agreement for the Protection and Repatriation of the Romanian minors who are in "difficult situations" on the territory of France ( signed in Paris, on 4 October)
The intervention of Romanian and French authorities to fight the phenomenon of illegal migration to France
The Independent daily of 05.10.2002, in it article ?In Paris yesterday ? Nastase - Raffarin meeting ?, refers to the fact that, at the meeting between the Romanian and French Prime Ministers, which took place in Paris on 05.10.2002, an Agreement on solving the issue of the Romanian minors who are illegally staying in France was signed.
Through this document, the parties pledged to cooperate to solve the situation of the Romanian children subject to abuses, exploitation and risk to commit offences, as well as to prevent such situations.
The Romanian and French authorities will also try to establish measures for their protection and social reintegration, and the necessary formalities to bring the minors back into their country.
According to the mentioned article, ??each case will be monitored for at least six months. The French side will provide the necessary finance for the identification and protection of the minors on France?s territory.?
The Agreement between the Romanian and French authorities was concluded for three years.
Romanian Interior Minister Ioan Rus pointed out that ??the number of Romanian minors in this situation is a lot smaller than the initial estimations, within a few hundred of cases, although the official estimations of the French side advance a real figure of one thousand.?
French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said in his turn that ??the French authorities have drawn up a bill extending the competencies of the local police, offering increased prerogatives in repressing mendicancy or alluring into mendicancy, but which also regard turbulent gangs of young people and foreign delinquents.?
III. The Romanian (domestic) legal framework on sanctioning offences committed outside the Romanian territory (OUG 112/2001)
The Emergency Ordinance no. 112/2001 on sanctioning offences committed outside the territory of the country by Romanian citizens or stateless persons residing in Romania, was published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 549 of September 3, 2001.
According to art. 1, para 1 of the Ordinance: ?The entrance in a foreign state or exit by illegally crossing its border, by a Romanian citizen or a person residing on Romania?s territory is an offence and is punished by imprisonment from 3 months to 2 years.?
Art. 2, para 1 of the same legal document runs that ? if the offence mentioned in para 1 was committed to avoid abiding by a punishment decision, the punishment is imprisonment from 6 months to 3 years.?
The attempt is also punished.
The content of art. 5 of the Emergency Ordinance 112/2001 also says that ?the Romanian citizen, condemned based on the stipulations of art. 1-3, is denied the issuance of a passport or, if the case requires, the right to use it is suspended for 5 years.
According to art. 6: ?The investigation and trial of the offences stipulated in the present law are made on an emergency basis, according to the directions of the penal procedure Code on the investigation and trial of flagrant offences.?
The investigation and trial of flagrant offences are regulated by the stipulations of art. 465-479 of the penal procedure Code.
According to art, 465 of the penal procedure Code, ?A flagrant offence is the one discovered while in act or immediately after. It is also considered a flagrant offence the one whose author is pursued by the injured person, eye witnesses or the public cry, right after it was committed??
The finding of the offence is made according to art. 467 of the penal procedure Code. According to this article, ?the informed penal investigation authority draws up a report presenting all the findings about the offence that has been committed. The report also includes the statements of the offender and the other heard persons.?
The accused is detained and arrested according to art. 468 of the penal procedure Code, which stipulates that ?the detainment lasts 24 hours. At the request of the investigation authority or ex oficio, the prosecutor can issue an warrant for arrest on the name of the accused person.? If the prosecutor finds that there are enough proofs to initiate the penal action, he draws up an Indictment which starts the penal action and sends the defendant to trial, issuing at the same time a warrant of arrest.
The competent body trying the cases related to flagrant offences stipulated in art. 466 of the penal procedure Code is the usual one. The flagrant offences stipulated in art. 466 of the penal procedure Code, as well as the aggravated forms of these offences, are punished by the law with imprisonment longer than 3 months and less than 5 years.
Another internal norm stipulating sanctions for illegal border crossing is the Emergency Ordinance no. 105 of 2001 on Romania?s state border, published in the Official Gazette, Part I, no. 352 of June 30, 2001.
Chapter V on ?Liabilities and Sanctions? of the Ordinance, art. 70 ? 73, stipulates for the same offences identical punishments as the ones in the Emergency Ordinance 112/2001.
This legal document also stipulates fines for acts that are not considered offences according to the penal law:
Subsequently, according to art. 75 letter d, ?the refusal of a person to give relations about his or her identity, to provide identity papers? at the request of the border police officials? is punished according to art 76, para 1, letter d with fine from 3,000,000 lei to 15,000,000 lei.
IV. Measures envisioned by the Romanian authorities for the reinsertion of readmitted persons
At present, the Romanian Government has prepared a draft Emergency Ordinance stipulating certain measures for the social reinsertion of the persons who come back to the country following the application of readmission agreements.
The project establishes the measures to be applied for the social reinsertion of the repatriated persons (Romanian citizens and stateless persons who used to be Romanian citizens and gave up or were withdrawn their Romanian citizenship following their leaving the country).
The purpose of the draft ordinance is to:
? establish unitary procedures for registering the repatriated persons when they enter the country;
? ensure, for a limited period, sustenance for the repatriated persons, to avoid them being socially marginalised and stimulate their social integration;
? ensure priority access for repatriated persons to social security and reinsertion;
? stimulate the repatriated persons to remain in the country.
Art. 8 of the Draft Ordinance stipulates temporary accommodation for the repatriated persons who do not have dwellings and request it, by creating local reinsertion centres, as social security institutions, answerable to the county labour and social solidarity directorates, set up through Government Decision.
The competencies of the local reinsertion Centres:
? making a social investigation within 10 days from the admission into the country of the repatriated persons, establishing definitively whether the persons have the right to financial assistance and accommodation in the reinsertion centre, and whether they will participate in the professional retraining and employment programme.
Through Order by the prefect, social investigation Commissions will be created, made up of one representative of the local authorities, of the Interior Ministry, the County Agency for Employment and Professional Training, the County Directorate for Child Protection, the state local inspectorate for disabled persons, the county medical directorate, and the social security non-governmental organisations, at their request.
The procedure related to receiving at the border the readmitted persons is stipulated in chapter III of the Draft Emergency Ordinance, i.e. by creating a receiving and social investigation commission, formed of representatives of the border police, customs authorities, local councils and county employment and social security commissions, according to art. 9, para 1.
The commission can also include, at their request, representatives of non-governmental organisations operating in the protection of underprivileged categories.
The competencies of the receiving and social investigation Commission are as follows:
? checking the identity of the repatriated persons, seizing their border crossing documents and preliminary interviewing them so as to establish their activity abroad;
? drawing up a report mentioning whether the repatriated person meets the required conditions to benefit from provisional assistance, which lasts 10 days and whose purpose is to clarify in detail the situation of the repatriated person.
V. Quick actions undertook by Romani CRISS in view of monitoring the recent operations for repatriation of the Romanian citizens ; further actions in view of a Plan of measures proposed by Romani CRISS regarding the social reinsertion of the repatriated persons based on readmission agreements
So far, Romani CRISS has addressed an official Letter to the Ministry of Interior Affairs of Romania (no. 712/2002), expressing the intention to be part of the receiving and social investigation Commission that is to be set up according to the Draft Emergency Ordinance on ?certain measures for the social reinsertion of the persons who come back into the country following the application of readmission agreements.?
The Ministry of Interior Affairs, through the reply no. 11051/04.10.2002, informs that it agrees in principle with the participation of Romani CRISS in the receiving Commission, and that, after the adoption of the Ordinance by the Government and its publication in the Official Gazette, based on the regulations included in the legal document, it will pronounce itself accordingly.
Romani CRISS has also proposed a Plan of Measures for 2002-2003 on the social reinsertion of the repatriated persons based on readmission agreements.
The objectives and activities of the plan of measures are as follows:
1. Assisting repatriated persons
? Monitoring the repatriation process so that it should be observant of the human rights
? Forming mixed commissions to receive the repatriated persons
? Registering the repatriated persons (personal data)
? Evaluating the causes of their migration
2. Support for the reintegration of the repatriated persons
? Developing coherent programmes for the local reinsertion centres
? Including the repatriated persons into local development programmes
? Solving the issues related to the legality of the repatriated persons (identity papers, health insurance etc.)
? Implementing professional retraining programmes
? Facilitating the access of repatriated persons to the labour market
? Monitoring the local situation regarding the process of repatriated persons? reintegration
3. Alternatives to the phenomenon of illegal migration
? Adopting policies regarding the exchange of labour force between Romania and other states
? Setting up an Agency for mediation in the labour market and professional retraining
? Protecting the victims of trafficking in human beings, especially children and women
? Organising an information campaign at local level about the right of free movement in the Schengen space
The objectives proposed by Romani CRISS will be reached in partnership with the institutions of the local and central public administration, the international institutions for migration and refugees, as well as with other non-governmental organisations of the Roma, at central and local level.
Annex 1
The documentation basis for the echoes in the press is
the Inforrom bulletin edited by Aven Amentza, and the
dailies monitored by the RomaNews agency.
Echoes in the Romanian press
? The Romanian press monitors this situation before the repatriation
The Ziua daily of 24.09.2002 publishes an article running ?The Gypsies have set their eyes on Europe?, which says that ?about 180 Gypsies, from Romania, half of them children, have been abandoned in a Swiss canton starting September 13, SwissInfo informs?although it seemed to be an isolated incident, over the last days, three other groups have been found abandoned in different areas of the Vaud canton.
On Saturday evening (n.b. September 7), 50 people were discovered at Crissier, on the Geneva ? Lausanne highway. A few hours later, other 39 suspects were found in the village of Thierrens, in the north of the canton. The last group, of 43 Gypsies, was discovered in Brassus, in Vall?e de Joux. The first three groups were transported to Switzerland in trucks, and the last one arrived there in five cars. All the illegal immigrants requested political asylum.?
According to the same daily, mentioned above, ?the Swiss authorities believe that the cause of this afflux is the fact that the conditions for receiving political asylum in France have hardened, but they have not figured out why the preferred destination is the Vaud canton,? and ??the arrival of such a large number of people in such a short while has posed serious problems to the canton, police and civil protection authorities. Although the chances to receive political asylum in Switzerland are extremely low, this will not prevent other groups from trying their luck in the future.?
The Ziua daily of 25.09.2002 runs ?The Bucharest authorities have been contacted by the Swiss ? The Gypsies who arrived in Switzerland will be sent to Romania?, in an article saying that ?the Swiss authorities have contacted the Romanian authorities following the flow of Romanian migrants seeking asylum in Switzerland?, according to the spokesperson for the Swiss Federal Office for Refugees, Dominique Boillat.
The Ziua daily also mentions that, according to the Swiss authorities, the asylum requests have considerably increased, as in only five days there were registered one hundred requests made by Romanians.
According to the Swiss Federal Office for Refugees, quoted by the Ziua daily, ?this afflux of immigrants to Switzerland might be a consequence of the statements made by French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, according to which all the Romanians residing illegally in France would be sent back to their country.?
The Azi daily of 27.09.2002 informs in its article ?Switzerland, the new destination of the Roma? that other 151 Romanian illegal immigrants arrived yesterday (n.b. 26.09.2002) at the Vallorbe locality, in the Vaud canton (western Switzerland), at the border between France and Switzerland. The immigrants arrived in six groups and were to be distributed in several receiving centers in this region, spokesperson for the Office for Refugees Dominique Boillat explained. The Office for Refugees announced this week that the chances of the illegal immigrants to obtain asylum in Switzerland were very low.
According to secretary of state with the Interior Ministry Alexandru Farcas, quoted by the same daily, ?when the Swiss authorities have analyzed the asylum requests and decided the expulsion, we shall apply the measures stipulated in the readmission agreement.?
The Ziua daily of 30.09.2002 informs in the article ?Solutions for the Gypsies illegally staying in Switzerland? that ?a joint team of specialists of the Interior Ministry and the Foreign Ministry starts in Bern today a series of consultations with the Swiss authorities about the issue of the Romanian citizens staying illegally in this country. Consular specialists will try to find modalities to apply the bilateral readmission agreement? Over the last six months, over 400 Romanian citizens, mostly Roma, entered the Swiss territory illegally, coming from France.?
The Gardianul daily of 01.10.2002 mentions in its article running ?Waves of Roma immigrants in Switzerland? that ?over the last week, over 400 Romanians living in France entered illegally the Swiss territory, paying between 100 and 500 euros to the French people smugglers? In Bern, Romanian Foreign Ministry and Interior Ministry specialists will start negotiations with the Swiss authorities to solve this crisis.?
The Ziua daily of 02.10.2002 informs in the article on ?Gypsies expelled from France refused by Switzerland? that ?the Swiss Ministry for Refugees (ODR) has rejected the asylum requests submitted by 46 Gypsies, while over 600 Romanians, most of them Gypsies, have tried to take refuge in Switzerland since the beginning of August.
According to the same daily, ??the Swiss authorities have decided to expel these persons to Romania, starting the end of this week already.?
According to Mr. Dominique Boillat, spokesperson for ODR, quoted by the Ziua daily, ?the Swiss administration admits that some of the asylum seekers are confronted by difficulties in Romania, but their life is not in danger.?
The Azi daily of 03.10.2002, in article ?46 Romanian asylum seekers expelled from Switzerland?, refers to the fact that ?a group of 46 Romanians, who were denied asylum by Swiss authorities, will be returned to the country, according to the Border Police General Inspectorate. The Romanians will be checked at their return in the country. Those who were staying illegally in Switzerland will have their right to use their passports suspended for maximum five years, and those who crossed the border illegally into this country or declared other identity data than the real ones will have penal cases drawn up.
? The reaction of the press after the repatriation of the group of Romanians
The Roma News press agency publishes on 04.10.2002 under the title ?40 Roma expelled from Switzerland have arrived at the Baneasa Airport? an article saying the following:
?On Thursday morning, October 3, 2002, at 10:50 a.m., the first group of Romanian citizens who are part of the Roma minority and who were expelled from the Swiss territory arrived at the Baneasa Airport on a Charter flight. The group was made up of 40 people, of whom 12 children, 14 men and 14 women. Before their embarkation, each family received 500 Swiss francs and a package of food from the Bern authorities.?
According to the same article, ??the Swiss authorities stated that the Romanian citizens of Roma origin were expelled because they did not have the right of residence, as their asylum applications had been rejected. The Swiss official pointed out however that these persons did not commit any offence on the Swiss territory.?
The article also presents the point of view of one of the repatriated persons, who underlines that ?we went there to work, and not to beg or steel. We cannot live here in Romania.?
The Curierul National, in its article ?40 Gypsies returned by Swiss authorities? of 04.10.2002, says that ??a group of 40 Romanians whose asylum applications were rejected by the Swiss authorities, arrived in Romania yesterday.
The group was brought in the country from Geneva on a plain that landed on the Baneasa Airport around 11.00 a.m. Each of the expelled families received food and 500 Swiss francs from the Swiss authorities before leaving.?
The article also mentions the point of view of commissioner Nicu Vaduva, the chief of the Baneasa Airport Border Police, according to whom ??there remains to be established the route of the Romanians towards Switzerland, as there might be some of them who crossed the border illegally or committed antisocial acts? Most of the returned Romanians have consular passports or certificates and, after we take their fingerprints and after the hearing, they are to be identified. The Romanians who were staying in Switzerland illegally will no longer have the right to use their passport for maximum five years, and those who crossed the border illegally to this country or declared other identity data than the real ones will be drawn up penal cases.?
First Deputy Chief of the Federal Office for Refugees Von Arb Urs, quoted by the Curierul National daily of 04.10.2002, points out that ?these are the first returned Romanians of the 400 who are in Switzerland. They requested asylum, as anyone has the right to do so, but, at the same time, the Swiss state is the one that decides to whom it grants this right.?
According to one of the returned Romanians, quoted by the Curierul National daily, he ??left Romania at the beginning of September? and he ?paid 280 euros to a person to be taken to Switzerland along with his wife and their two children. The respective people smuggler transported them by minibus to France, where they remained hidden for a while, and afterwards they were taken by another minibus and brought to Switzerland.?
The press article goes on: ??Most of the returned persons say they left the country because they are Roma and for this reason they cannot find a job in Romania. They stayed in France for a while, but, because the French policy regarding migration has hardened, they preferred to go to Switzerland, where, according to them, if they had obtained asylum, the state would have had given them a job.?
According to the electronic edition of Wednesday, 02.10.2002, of the Le Temps daily, quoted by the Curierul National daily, the group was discovered on September 13, in two cars stopped in a courtyard in the locality of Renens. Most of the Romanians had left the Choisy-le-Roy camp in the outskirts of Paris, and this was the first group of Romanian Gypsies who came to Switzerland following the hardened French policy regarding immigrants.?
? The case of the persons repatriated from Switzerland is still in the attention of the media
According to the Ziua and the Curierul National dailies of 05.10.2002, in the articles ?Penal cases for Gypsies expelled from Switzerland? and ?They can smell the court ? The Gypsies expelled from Switzerland are subject to penal cases?, respectively, ?the adults of the group of Romanians returned on Thursday from Switzerland ? practically all of them, except for one ? have penal cases drawn up for having illegally crossed the border of a foreign state, according to sources with the Border Police General Inspectorate.?
According to the same dailies, the Border Police seized the temporary travel documents of all the 40 people expelled from Switzerland, so as to suspend their right to use the passports for a certain time. Four of them were also penal investigated for various offences.
Annex II
ODIHR CPRSI Informal Briefing Note on:
? Romanian-French Agreement on Protection and Repatriation of Romanian Minors who are in difficult situation ( including exploitation) in France
? Roundtable of the French and Romanian NGOs , Paris 4 October
Warsaw, 14 October , work in progress
Summary
The Romanian and French Prime-ministers signed Friday, on 4th October at Paris an
Agreement for the protection of the Romanian Minors being currently in difficult situation in France .
The original title of the document ,in the French language is : ACCORD entre le Gouvernement de la la Republique Francaise and le Gouvernement de la Roumanie Relatif a une cooperation en vue de la Protection des Mineurs Roumains en Difficulte sur le Territoire de la Republicque Francaise et a leur Retour dans leurs Pays d'Origine , ainsi qu'a la Lutte contre le Reseaux d'Exploitation ( see unofficial draft ,in printed form, annexed)
According to art. 1 of this document the governments of the two countries commit themselves to collaborate in order to
"solve the situation of the Romanian minors who are currently in a difficult situation on territory of France-namely the Romanian children who are exposed to the risks of being abused, exploited or as delinquents- and to prevent such situations" ( CPRSI l translation in English)
Details
I. The main objectives of co-operation and plan of action, as defined in art.nr.2-3 of the Agreement are:
? to identify and protect the Romanian minors ,without legal representatives, who are victims or perpetrators of criminal offences: the French authorities will identify the Romanian children/minors without, who are "isolated"( without family/ legal representatives) and in "difficult situations" in France, including squatting, committing small delinquency, being exploited by networks of traffickers ( begging, prostitution, etc)
? prepare measures for their social reintegration in both countries; in particular, on case-by -case approach, their repatriation in Romania ;
- they will be took in charge by non governmental organisations from France in co-operation with by the Judiciary mechanism ( Police, Prosecutor, Judge) specially dealing with children /minors ,according to French legislation and procedures; this is a combination of "assistance/support " and " law enforcement measures" when individual criminal offences are documented
-meanwhile, Romanian authorities will collect information about the family/community of origin of the "isolated" minor in view of preparing, in co-operation with Romanian ONG with relevant expertise, a " project of reintegration" of the minor in a family or( in case of those coming form orphanages) in a community/ institutional context, where s/he may find real prospects of decent life in Romania;
-the French Judge for the minors will decide if the "Romanian reintegration project" is a solid one and , with the consent of the children/minor, will decide about possible repatriation to Romania.
? The voluntary repatriation action will be organised by the IOM ( based on their expertise in this area) and once in Romania, the children/minor will be took in charge by the Romanian authorities and the NGOs which designed the "project for the reintegration" . The minors coming from an identified family would be reintegrated in their families, with the parents? agreement, and the orphans ones would be send in orphanage/other public institutions, depending on the age of the person.
? Each case will be monitored on a period of at least six months, the time needed to accomplish the above-mentioned procedures
? The French party will ensure the financing of the procedures for the identification and protection of the children/minors in France, as well as the costs for their repatriation, and additional costs for training the Romanian personnel involved in this emerging institutional arrangement.
? Contact group of experts from the two countries will be established , to deal with the operational relations;
? The Agreement is valid for a period of three years.
II. On the same day, 4 October, in Paris was held a Roundtable Meeting among the French and Romanian ONGs on assisting the Romanian minors who are in a situation of isolation in France . The meeting was hosted by the Ministry of Social Affairs, Labour and Solidarity, in particular by Ms. Dominique Versini, the State Secretary for fight against (social) marginalisation and exclusion and by the Romanian State Secretary for the Protection of the Children and Adoptions.
At the opening of the Roundtable were present the French and the Romanian Ministers for Internal Affairs, and senior officers in the Romanian Government.
The main topic of the debate was how to tackle the particular case of a number (unspecified ) of Romanian children and minors who are currently living in France and who, in recent months, received a large press coverage in the French press and in the action of the French authorities to combat the feelings of "insecurity" in various starta of the French population- annexed in printed form, Intervention du Mme Dominique Versini)
A follow-up meeting of French and Romanian NGOs will be held in Romania, in the coming months. An evaluation of this experimental arrangement will be in June 2003.
I had attended the Roundtable meeting, as ODIHR CPRSI observer, invited by the French OSCE Delegation in Vienna
During the Roundtable on 4 October, both optimism and caution were expressed on the prospect of success of an operation which has multiple obstacles whose exploration and eventually solution require time, skilled human resources, adequate finance and political determination (informal notes of the debate, in French, are available at the CPRSI)
III. A Press Conference was held at the end of the Roundtable, by Ms. Versini and Mr. Petru Serban Mihailescu, Minister at the General Secretariat of the Romanian Government.
Ms. Versini presented some of the main points of the Agreement . She also mentioned that abut 2 million Euro will be allotted by French authorities to implement the first operations designed in the Agreement
After the signing of the Agreement, the Romanian Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr. Ioan Rus, On his turn, the Romanian Minister for the Co-ordination of the Government?s General Secretariat, Serban Mihailescu, declared that the number of the Romanian children/minors in this situation is smaller than the initial estimations and that ?Romania hopes to solve the problem of the Romanian minors from France until the second half of 2003, even though this Agreement is valid for three years"
IV. In a different but related context, the French Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy, presented, on beginning of October, to the French Council of Ministers the draft of a new and controversial law on internal security , which among others , give enhanced prerogatives to Police , repress beggary and any form of traffic in human beings and explicitly target the ''gens du voyage" who are camping illegally on private sites. I remind that in France the "Gens du Voyage"/ Travellers is a broad socially category under the public administrative law who includes persons and groups of various cultural/ethnic background, including the Tsiganes, or the group dealt with in the OSCE as "the Roma and Sinti". The OSCE ODIHR Report on the Election (Presidential, first round) in France, highlighted the legal/administrative obstacles confronted by the Gens du Voyage in their registration for voting.
( see excerpts from the Report attached).
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