ABSTRACT
The predicament of Romani minorities as citizens of different European states remains a
daunting challenge for both scholars as well as policy-makers. In many instances, citizens
identified as belonging to Romani minorities have only limited access to the most funda-
mental citizenship rights, although these rights have been de iure granted to them. Since
they are not fully included in the bodies of citizenry in different contexts, they are fre-
quently considered semi-citizens (Cohen, 2009, p. 72), thus possessing citizenship
status, but de facto not enjoying the privileges associated with that status: they are formally
equal, but their position as citizens is marked by unevenness. As many different academic
studies have illustrated, the position of Romani minorities as citizens deteriorated after the
collapse of socialist state regimes (Barany, 2002; Guy, 2001; Ringold, Orenstein, &
Wilkens, 2005). The importance of Romani minorities’ integration was afterwards high-
lighted during the integration of Central and Eastern European states into the EU.
However, one of the unanticipated outcomes of this emphasis was also the rise in local
xenophobic and racist discourses directed towards Romani minorities as the attention
devoted by the EU to their position was interpreted as yet another of their privileges
(Vermeersch, 2012, p. 1209). Some scholars argued that Romani minorities were not
simply seen as the European minority par excellence (Vermeersch, 2012), but also as
