Abstract
The chapter explores the viability of a trans-territorial (or non-territorially based) Romani state within Europe. The starting point for the exploration is a recognition that, for generations, European Romanies have experienced acute forms of racism, discrimination and maltreatment at the hands of both governments and civil society organizations, without having had an institutional arrangement through which they could meaningfully address their condition of on-going marginalization. The chapter argues that the formation of a trans-territorial Romani state would significantly alter Romanies’ relationship with the European community by creating an institutional framework for engaging with Europe on more equal, just and effectual terms, and by establishing productive socio-cultural and political mechanisms for dealing with the thorny issues of Romani physical security, cultural autonomy and political sovereignty. Thus, the chapter’s primary objective is to consider the question of viable foundations for the Romani socio-cultural and political mobilization that can lead to the formation of the trans-territorial Romani state.
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Notes
- 1.
In 2004 and 2007 the European Union expanded eastward, growing from 15 to 27 member-states. In so doing, the EU became home to a sizable Romani population from several post-communist states (i.e. Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria). Before joining, these states were subject to a lengthy accession process, which included regular evaluations, inspections and assessment exercises. Time and again, applicant states were cited (and chided) for not dealing effectively with the ‘Romani problem’. The 2003 Comprehensive Monitoring Report on the Czech Republic’s Preparation for Membership contends: “the situation of the Roma minority, the multi-faceted discrimination and social exclusion forced by the Roma continues to give cause for concern” (2003: 34). Far from motivating EU candidate countries to address racism and discrimination directed at Romanies, the accession process contributed to policy stasis. Enough was done to secure membership, but beyond that candidate states were unprepared (or unwilling) to do what was necessary to redress Romani marginalization and exclusion.
- 2.
In political terms, the state is first and foremost a political organization, delimited with an effectively static population, government and capacity to engage in international relations. The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, Article 3, codifies these requirements, also suggesting that “[t]he political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states. Even before recognition the state has the right to defend its integrity and independence[.]” (1933). States also enjoy juridical personality and sovereignty, are conceived as principal actors in the international system, and are thought to have ‘rights’ and ‘privileges’ with regard to territorial integrity and immunity.
States and territory have become synonymous even though principles of extra-territoriality, universality and nationality would seem to suggest that state sovereignty frequently extends beyond its territorial base. It is not unheard of, then, for states to assert jurisdiction over peoples and places outside their immediate vicinity, or for people outside their territorial state to be accorded rights (on an ‘unbundling’ of territoriality in relation to systems of rule, see Ruggie, 1993).
- 3.
Statehood is one way to realise this. However, political autonomy could also work to empower Roma within the confines of the European Union. Governance provides for this, and existing EU institutions could well facilitate ‘international’ relations between Roma and European states.
- 4.
The issue of Romani socio-cultural uniqueness has been, indirectly, acknowledged by the Council of Europe’s Recommendation 1203 (1993) on Gypsies in Europe (1993), in the statements regarding the issue of Romani discrimination and endemic poverty. The statements convey the sense that Romanies are unique, possess nation-like qualities, and can positively contribute to the construction of a pan-European identity. They do, however, downplay Romani’s ‘national or linguistic’ character, but suggest (in statement 3) that Romanies ‘contribute’ linguistically and culturally to the European mosaic.
- 5.
Saul and Tebbut, having conducted interviews with European Romanies, suggest: “[in] general, the consolidating functions of memory is wildly recognised among the Roma elites in central and eastern Europe. Collective memory has, for instance, been explicitly mentioned as equivalent to having a state” (2004: 213).
- 6.
Ruggie’s notion of the ‘unbundling of territoriality’—that is, of “an institutional negation of exclusive territoriality … as the means of situating and dealing with those dimensions of collective existence … recognize(d) to be irreducibly transterritorial in character” (Ruggie, 1993: 165, original emphasis)—provides a useful conceptual framework for grounding the idea of a trans-territorial state. As Ruggie points out, “systems of rule need not be territorial at all [and] need not be territorially fixed. [E]ven where systems of rule are territorial, and even where territoriality is relatively fixed, the prevailing concept of territory need not entail mutual exclusion” (1993: 149, emphasis added). In this sense, territoriality is one of multiple principles of state formation, governance, sovereignty and autonomy. For Ruggie, it is the hallmark of modernity’s state-based systems of rule. In contrast, the unbundling of territoriality “is the place wherein a rearticulation of international political space would be occurring today”, and, as such, is “a useful terrain for exploring the condition of postmodernity in international politics” (Ruggie, 1993: 171, 174).
- 7.
For some time now Romani activists have been considering, among other things, the feasibility of a discrete Romani political community. As Barany establishes, quoting Thomas Acton,
‘Romanestan’—a Gypsy Israel—was never a genuine political possibility even had it attracted the support of more than a few intellectuals. Given the intellectual community’s lack of political will, the resistance of individual state to giving up a part of their territory for the Roma, the lack of Gypsy political and economic resources, and division within the world Romani community pertaining to the desirability of a separate homeland, the idea has never been seriously considered on either the national or the supranational level. (Barany, 2002: 257–258)
- 8.
Since its inception in 1977, the International Romani Union (IRU) has been tasked with representing Romani peoples at international conferences and congresses. McGarry (2010: 143) contends that “[IRU] propagates the construction of Roma as ‘a nation without a territory’, the argument being that as Roma are a non-territorial nation, they should possess the same rights as other nations, including representation in intergovernmental organizations”. Yet statehood, as an endgame political programme or basis for political mobilization, has never seriously entered the vernacular, and Romani organizations remain tethered to the nation-states they reside.
- 9.
As Radaelli (2000: 4) puts it,
Europeanization consists of processes of (a) construction, (b) diffusion and (c) institutionalization of formal and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles, ‘ways of doing things’ and shared beliefs and norms which are first defined and consolidated in the EU policy process and then incorporated in the logic of domestic (national and subnational) discourse, political structures and public choices.
Europeanization is therefore an ongoing process that has changed, and will continue to change, the way contentious politics unfolds in the European Union. As a host of complimentary developments at both the European and nation-state (member-state) level that enhance claim-making opportunities and afford access to European NGOs and EU lawmakers, Europeanization is helping to establish a pan-European rights discourse that not only encourages equality and multiculturalism but creates new opportunities for the Romani pan-European mobilization and trans-territorial statehood claims.
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Mišina, D., Cruickshank, N. (2020). From Gypsies to Romanies: Identity, Cultural Autonomy, Political Sovereignty and (the Search for a) Trans-territorial State. In: Levin, J. (eds) Nomad-State Relationships in International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28053-6_12
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