Commission won't sue Paris after all

Published on 20 October 2010 at 11:06

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"Paris has narrowly avoided being hauled before the European Court of Justice on the Roma repatriation matter,” reports România liberă after the European Commission opted yesterdayto refrain from pursuing an infringement procedure against France for breach of free movement rules. On 15 October, in a last-minute e-mail sent off less than two hours before the deadline set by the Commission, Paris has pledged to “pass national legislation incorporating all the procedural safeguards in theEU’s Free Movement Directive" by January 2011. After that, explains the daily, the expulsion of Roma will have to follow a set procedure allowing prospective deportees to appeal the decision. But "suspicions of ethnic discrimination linger on”, notes România liberă, fuelled by revelations in the French press of severalpolice databases compiling lists of Roma from the Balkans.

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