This new amendment, proposed by two National Liberal Party deputies, has caused understandable concern, particularly amongst those who campaign for the rights of Roma.
NGOs in Romania are demanding the rejection of a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would limit the rights of minorities in the country to deem themselves “Romanian” unless they can “scientifically prove” their ethnicity. The shocking proposition has outraged Roma rights groups, who say the amendment is obviously discriminatory and clearly an attack on the Roma community, potentially robbing them of the right to call themselves Romanians, in an attempt to educate foreigners that Roma are not Romanians.
The amendment appears to demand that Romanian Roma refer to themselves by neither term.
“Except minorities that have scientifically provable common roots with the Romanians any other minority cannot use officially use the term Romanian as a title, derivatives thereof or similar sounds, which can cause confusion, falsely indicating Romanian origin,” reads the proposed amendment. The proposal appears also to be in flagrant disregard of international human rights accords, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, according to the NGOs. The European human rights agreements would also be breached by a constitutional denial of the right for an ethnic group from Romania to call themselves Romanian.
The supposed purpose of the bill is to distance Romania from any association with the Roma people. But in practice this move will probably have little impact outside Romania – the main impact will fall on the Roma, who will surely feel still more marginalised in their country. There have been Roma in Romania since the 14th century. Until 1856 most were slaves.