Introduction: The Politics of Immigration and Citizenship in an Enlarging European Union

In October 2007, the body of Giovanna Reggiani was found in a ditch in a northern suburb of the city of Rome, Italy. The police, politicians and press immediately initiated a hunt for her killer, who would be revealed as the Romanian Romulus Nicolae Mailat. Perceptions of Romanian immigrants as a violent, criminal threat to Italy burst out in spectacular fashion. Walter Veltroni, the Mayor of Rome from the centre-left Democratic Party (Partito Democratico, PD), declared that the accession of Romania to the European Union (EU) earlier that year had opened the doors to the arrival of particularly aggressive criminals, and that there were ‘too many Romanians […] who do inacceptable things’ (Il Sole 24 Ore, L’opposizione contro Governo e Veltroni: interventi tardive, 1 November 2007, Barbagli 2008). Romanians in Italy were defined as ‘crime-tourists’ (Il Giornale, I turisti del crimine, 4 November 2007), and the areas of their settlement as dangerous places ‘where women are killed and raped in front of everybody’ (Il Sole 24 Ore, L’opposizione contro Governo e Veltroni: interventi tardive, 1 November 2007). Mass deportations were suggested as the answer, with the Rome Prefecture rapidly announcing that 5,000 Romanians could be expelled in order to ‘clean the water of infected fish’ (La Repubblica, Romeni, scattano le espulsioni. “Via i primi cinquemila”, 2 November 2007).