WRITTEN QUESTION E-3114/97 by Roberta Angelilli (NI) to the Commission (13 October 1997)

Subject: Travellers' encampments in Rome

There are a large number of travellers' encampments situated inside Rome's city limits, often next to densely populated areas on the outskirts of town. These 'tent cities', which over the years have taken on the aspect of permanent shantytowns and do not meet any of the basic standards of hygiene and safety, are home to several thousand people, including many children, almost none of whom are receiving any form of education.

Encampments of this kind are obviously unacceptable in a modern city such as Rome from the point of view of their inhabitants' quality of life; furthermore, as they are often situated in run-down areas on the edge of town which are already subject to many social pressures, they are in effect time-bombs which have the potential to unleash 'civil war' between the urban poor.

This situation is exacerbated by the extraordinary attitude to petty crime -often involving children-found among a majority of those living in these encampments.

In view of the foregoing,

1. Is it acceptable, particularly in the light of current Community guidelines on the quality of life in urban areas, for whole areas of a city such as Rome to be occupied by caravans and dilapidated shacks that are home to thousands of people yet do not comply with basic standards of hygiene and public health?

2. Is it acceptable for hundreds of children to be deliberately deprived of any form of education and destined for a life of crime?

3. Do similar situations exist in other European cities, and is there any Community legislation on the subject?

Answer given by Mr Flynn on behalf of the Commission (1 December 1997)

The Honourable Member raises what is essentially a problem of (precarious) housing conditions, an area in which the Community has no competence to act. The Treaties and Agreements that provide the legal basis for Community action contain no reference to the right to housing or to the housing conditions of the poor. The problem of housing is covered by national housing policies. No Community legislative instrument exists for identifying and monitoring application of the right to housing in the Member States (Question 3).

In addition to the specific issue of (precarious) housing, the Honourable Member also raises the problem of the availability and provision of decent stopover sites for travellers (whether transit stopovers or longer-duration stopovers, notably during the winter period). There would appear to be nothing to preclude co-financing operations involving certain structural funds (e.g. for urban renovation) to improve sites and encampments for travellers, provided the political will was there.

The Commission would point out that Council Directive 94/33/EC of 22 June 1994 on the protection of young people at work ((OJ L 216, 20.8.1994. )) obliges Member States to take the necessary measures to prohibit work by children. Under the terms of Article 1(3) of this Directive, Member States are required to ensure that young people are protected against economic exploitation and against any work likely to harm their safety, their health or their physical, mental, moral or social development or to jeopardise their education.

As established in Article 126 of the EC Treaty, the content of teaching and the organisation of education systems remains the responsibility of the Member States. As for teaching travellers' children, many experiments have been tried, notably involving itinerant schools, and these too have been co-financed by the Commission. For example, under the Comenius chapter of the Socrates programme the Community supports projects aimed at improving the quality of education of the children of migrant and itinerant workers, travellers and gypsies.

The European observatory for the homeless, supported by the Commission and established in 1991 - the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless -, publishes reports each year on the situation of the homeless and of those in very precarious housing situations in the Member States. The 1996 reports related specifically to the homeless young. In view of the scale of the problem throughout virtually the whole of Europe, the question of stopover sites for travellers has also been debated in the Council of Europe, which has also published a brochure on the subject.