subject: The Exceptional Treatment of Romanian Migrants in UK Migration Law [print this page] The Romanian press was also indignant about the exceptional treatment of Romanian migrants in UK migration law. To a certain extent there is an air of reluctant acceptance of this positioning of Romania as a low-wage, low-skill periphery. For example, one article was headlined "The British want only strawberry pickers from Romania" while another noted that "London wants us for lowly work". However, there is also an expression of resentment in that Romanians (and Bulgarians) have been singled out as a problem and do not have access to the same rights of free movement that are enjoyed by the other formerly socialist states that joined the EU in 2004.
As the debate in the UK about immigration intensified, an increasing number of articles in the Romanian press started to Merrell Sandal challenge British self-assumptions of moral and cultural superiority. Indeed there was increasing mockery of contemporary life in the UK, presented in such a way as to ridicule British press reportage about Romania. In so doing, Romania a country that was normally the target of the Balkanist discourse generated its own counter-critique of the UK, which was vigorously generating Balkanist stereotypes of Romania in its tabloid press.
A number of articles in Adevarul reported on life in contemporary Britain by inverting the stereotypes that the British press was using about Romania. For example, placed alongside an article about restrictions on Romanian workers was a small feature noting that British prisons were so overcrowded that the British government was considering re-instating prison ships as places of detention? This contests the claims in the British press that Romania's accession to the EU would be followed by increased criminality by highlighting that Britain's prisons are Merrell Boots already full. Similarly, an article with the headline "The British no longer feel happy in their own country" noted that it was "not only Romanians who want to leave their country." It reported a study that found one in four people in Britain (predominantly unskilled workers) would consider emigrating in search of a better standard of living. Romanians were now able to apply exactly the same argument to Britain that parts of the British press had used about Romania.
Another example followed the publication of a UNICEF report that criticised the UK's record on the education and treatment of its children. Adevdrul's headline was: "British children, the most neglected and the least educated". It continued: "British youth are more disruptive and unhappy due to the lack of attention from their parents." Such reportage directly challenges and inverts dominant ideas about Romania in the Western imagination. Whereas the Western press has frequently portrayed Romania as unable to care for its children, Romanians were now being invited to gaze back at Britain in wonder and pity for a country that was failing its young people.
However, it was claims in the British newspaper The Sun that the accession of Bulgaria and Romania would cause a tuberculosis "crisis" in the UK that generated the strongest response in Romania. These followed articles on 1 and 2 November about a wave of criminality that would follow Romania's accession to the EU. Adevdrul noted that "the anti-Romanian campaign of the British press and especially of the tabloid 'The Sun' on the theme of immigration has found another cliche concerning Romania." The article went on to refute the claims in The Sun by pointing out that Romania had one of the highest rates of detection and treatment of tuberculosis in Europe and that this programme had been recognized as one of the most efficient in Europe by the World Health Organisation.
The Exceptional Treatment of Romanian Migrants in UK Migration Law
By: FIRELEAVES
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