Rome - Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni and his
Romanian counterpart Cristian David were to focus on immigration and
crime in talks scheduled later on Thursday.
The meeting in Rome comes amid moves by Italy's new conservative
government to tighten controls on immigration, including from other
European Union member states like Romania.
Earlier this week Romania's Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu
denounced reports that Italy was considering reimposing border
checks, saying such measures could fuel xenophobia.
Maroni, who is from the anti-immigration Northern League party, on
Tuesday said he favoured making illegal immigration a crime and that
such a measure could be included in a security decree to be approved
soon by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government.
Maroni also said he would give the government's top public order
official in Milan special powers to deal with the city's Roma camps
which, as elsewhere in Italy, have been associated with crime in the
northern city.
On Tuesday authorities in Naples evacuated a Roma camp torched by
local residents who were incensed by a Roma girl's alleged attempt to
kidnap a baby.
By Wednesday the 100 or so Roma in the camp situated in the
low-income Ponticelli district had been moved to other Roma
settlements in Naples.
The incident is the latest of a series of high profile cases
involving Italy's Roma community - many of whom are of Romanian
nationality and live in squalid shanty towns.
Late last year the previous centre-left government expelled over
200 Romanian nationals with criminal records in the wake of the
murder, allegedly by a Roma man of Romanian origin, of a housewife in
Rome.
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