Washington Post | 23.04.2017
By Anna Momigliano
MILAN — When people think of racism and xenophobia in Italy, what comes to mind is usually prejudice toward Arabs, Africans and other easily identifiable minorities. But Romanians have become one of the major targets of xenophobic abuse here — despite the fact that the two countries are both European Union members that have similar languages and cultures.
A high-profile example of that prejudice occurred earlier in April, when a prominent Italian politician falsely accused Romania of exporting almost half of its criminals to Italy, then blamed the European Union for making it possible.
“Italy has imported 40 percent of [their] criminals from Romania. While Romania is importing from Italy our firms and our capital. What an amazing deal the EU is!,” wrote Luigi Di Maio, the vice president of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Italy’s parliament, and one of the leading representatives of the populist Five Star Movement, in a controversial Facebook post.