Romanian Interior Minister Carmen
Dan has met in Bucharest with the Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Interior
Minister, Matteo Salvini. The focal points of the talks included the situation
of the Romanian community in Italy, Romania’s holding the presidency of the EU
Council in the first semester of 2019 and bilateral cooperation in the field of
security.
On this occasion, minister Dan said
Romania has all necessary instruments to boost police cooperation, both at the
level of Home Affairs Attaches and by deploying Romanian policemen on mission
in Italy. According to the Romanian official, some 90 Romanian policemen have
been sent on operative missions in Italy, and another Home Affairs Attaché will
be sent to Rome in the ensuing period of time. As regards the efforts that are being made to
contain criminal activities, Minister Dan has said the institution she runs is
fully open to further cooperate with the Italian authorities and she has underlined
that zero tolerance should be showed to all perpetrators of criminal acts,
irrespective of the citizenship they hold.
Carmen Dan:
Neither me nor Mr Salvini can ignore the fact that a large community of
Romanian citizens, over one million people, is living in Italy, and most of them
are working, honest and decent people, who observe the law and the rules of the
community they live in. That is why we can never generalize a specific
situation of breaking the law or of violating social coexistence norms. I have
reconfirmed to my colleague that we will show zero tolerance to criminal
activities and reiterated our readiness to further achieve an efficient
cooperation between our law enforcing forces and our partners, to prevent and
fight criminal activities.
In turn, Matteo
Salvini has said the mistakes made by some members of the Romanian community
should not impact the others. Also, the Italian official has thanked the Romanian
authorities for their contribution to identify the Romanian nationals on wanted
list in his country and for the fact that in Romania, the Italian community
which numbers thousands of members, benefits from a high level of security.
In this
context, the Italian official has said the two sides will boost cooperation
between their police forces. In another move, minister Salvini has invited Carmen Dan to Rome, to
draft a Romanian-Italian proposal on emigration and security. The proposal is
to be debated upon during the Romanian presidency of the EU Council.
According to Romanian pundits, the
Italian official has toned down his discourse, after two months ago he accused
Romania and Bulgaria of sending slaves to Western Europe. It was also back then
that the leader of the far right Northern League announced he would tackle
together with his Romanian and Bulgarian counterparts a series of measures to
keep organised crime activities at bay.