Brussels - The European Commission on Thursday cleared controversial plans by Italy to fingerprint its Roma residents after the government agreed to make changes enabling them to comply with European Union rules. A spokesman for the EU's top justice official, Jacques Barrot, said good cooperation between the European Commission and the Italian government had made it possible to "correct any debatable measures or provisions."
In June, the centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi proposed fingerprinting ethnic Roma, including children, as part of efforts to obtain more reliable information about their numbers, schooling arrangements and living conditions.
Catholic charities and the United Nation Children's Fund (UNICEF) were among the first to slam the proposals as a violation of fundamental rights.
The EU had also questioned the initiative and had asked the Italian government to submit a detailed report on its intentions.
The report, received in Brussels on August 1, makes no reference to "guidelines, decrees or rules allowing the collection of data on the basis of ethnic or religious origin," said Barrot's spokesman, Michele Cercone.
Moreover, fingerprinting will not be systematic and will only be carried out as a last resort, Cercone said.
"For minors, it is limited to cases which are strictly necessary for identification, when that is not possible by other documents," the spokesman added.
The Berlusconi government further reassured the EU by saying that it had cleared its plans with the country's data protection watchdog and that it would cooperate with UNICEF and the Red Cross in implementing the measures.
Surveys suggest many Italians associate Roma with increasing levels of crime. Preliminary estimates carried out in Rome suggest that of the 7,000 Roma children living in the city's squatter camps, only 1,000 are enrolled in schools.
