The Balkans and central Eastern Europe are experiencing the most serious and sudden drop in population in the world. Actually, for more than twenty years, the birth rates have been constantly declining and have recently reached the critical threshold which, according to experts, may not guarantee generational replacement.

The factors which determine this change are many, but among them, the high rate of emigration of young women of a fertile age, stands out. This phenomenon is causing an upheaval also in terms of ethnic composition, as shown by studies carried out by the most prestigious demographic centres and institutes of research regarding Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as Hungary and Slovakia. It is understood from these studies, in fact, that while the autochthonous population continues to show a marked decline, the Romani are the only ethnic group excepted from this decrease; instead their population is growing and, in a few decades, may become the majority in the area.

This phenomenon, apart from rewriting the ethnic composition of the Balkans due to the disappearance of whole peoples, could generate consequences of a political nature, both within the individual countries and also within the regional order. This is due to the high degree of intolerance of the Rom community towards the status quo, and also by the way external actors have used the situation, actors who are concerned with exploiting ethnic divisions in order to broaden their sphere of influence. In this regard, we may consider what Turkey is doing and its protagonism within the Rom community in Bulgaria where a recent operation by the local police brought to light a Rom terrorist circle, radicalised by preachers in the pay of Ankara. Tens of them have also fought in Syria in the ranks of the Islamic State.
It is not only Turkey, but also India which, as the guarantor of the protection of European Romani, may take advantage of this in order to extend its range of action in the area.
At present, it is difficult to estimate the numbers of Romani present in the area since there is no agreement between the censuses carried out by the institutions and the data gathered by research centres using studies carried out in the field. In this respect, we may take the example of Romania where the census calculated 600,000, while studies made in the field counted between three and four million people.

The Romani flag or flag of the Roma (Romani: O styago le romengo) is the international flag of the Romani people.

A large part of the Romani people trace their roots back to a people who spoke a popular form of Sanskrit and who, in around 1000 AD left the Indus delta to migrate towards Europe. Among them there were experts in metalwork. Others, instead, are descendants of a Christian people who came from Thrace. In the view of some experts, the name ‘Gypsy’ – from the Greek ‘tsinganoi’, the untouchables – by which all the nomads of Europe, from Romania to Portugal, were called, may be directly associated with the Pariah, members of the lowest Indian caste, those without a caste, those who were untouchable due to their social condition. For the next four centuries, after 1000 AD, they settled in many European countries, starting with the Balkans, adapting their economy and rhythm of life according to the possibilities of the countries in which they lived.
After the Ottoman invasions, in the XIV and XV centuries, the Romani were involved directly in the invasions, mainly as auxiliary soldiers or artisans at the service of the army.

According to some estimates, in the XVI and XVII centuries, between 15,000 and 20,000 ‘gypsies’ were recruited into the Ottoman army in various capacities, serving both as real infantry and in auxiliary service. The Romani community, however, did not live in isolation from their historical and cultural ambient; quite the opposite, it was an integral part of it and was strongly influenced by the customs of the local peoples. From the point of view of religion, the facts show that, in the XV and XVI centuries, the majority of Romani followed the Christian faith and were distinguished from those of the Muslim faith only by the fact that they had to pay higher taxes than them.
For centuries, a considerable number of Romani remained in the Balkans; the rest emigrated throughout the world bringing with them the cultural and traditional models of the Balkans. There is therefore no doubt that, also the Ottoman Empire, which dominated the Balkans for more than five centuries, effectively influencing the culture and religion of the location, played a fundamental role in the process of formation and development of the Romani people. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Romani remained settled within the confines of the Balkans and, from then on, their historical destiny and their evolution were subject to the influences of the country where they lived. Nevertheless, the inheritance left by the Ottoman Empire was still present in various ways, both ethnic and religious.

Today, unlike in those times, the Romani live in the precarious condition of complete social marginalisation. Their communities actually live within peripheral areas which we may undoubtedly define as real ethnic enclaves, with little access to basic services such as education and health and where infant mortality rates are high. These factors, together with a short life expectancy, endemic poverty and illiteracy that shackle this minority, partly explain the overall high birth rate of over three children for each woman, completely overturning the tendency towards the decrease in population recorded among the autochthonous population. According to data supplied by the United Nations and the World Bank, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Serbia have an average fertility rate of 1.4 children for each woman, that is, 0.7 points less than the 2.1 required to guarantee generational replacement. In particular, by the year 2050, the populations of Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia will decline by more than 15%, and by the year 2100, their populations will decline from 7,128,000 to 3,400,000, from 19,600,000 to 11,700,000 and from 7,057,000 to 5,330,000 respectively. For more than twenty years, in fact, the birth rate has been in constant decline and recently reached the critical threshold of nine births per thousand of the population. The phenomenon, which extends also to Eastern Europe, includes Slovakia and Hungary and, between the years 2040 and 2060, the Romani population may become the most numerous and establish itself as the first ethnic group, to the detriment of the autochthonous population. (F.R.)

Serbian demography is also following the trend of the other surrounding countries, registering a considerable decline in population, something that involves especially the citizens belonging to the Serbian ethnic group.

Demographic studies inform us that, in the period from 1991 to 2011, the population changed from 8,010,000 to 7,186,000, while the population of autochthonous citizens recorded a sharp decline from 6,616,000 to 5,988,000. In Serbia, too, the Roma are moving in the opposite direction; during the same period they increased from 90,000 to 147,000. However, the true figures may be much higher. In fact, data elaborated in 2012 by the Roma and Nomads Division of the Council of Europe, indicate numbers that oscillate between 400,000 and 800,000. The birth rate among Roma Serbs, elaborated by an independent researcher, is also remarkable, with figures of 5.32 children per woman as well as 7.9% of Roma families with more than 11 children.
These data show a substantial disproportion in the birth rate among ethnic Serbs which the World Bank certifies to be 1.44 children per woman in the year 2017.

According to a report elaborated by the Council of Europe, for the protection of national minorities, Serbia has a sound legal framework for their protection and the Serbian authorities are making laudable efforts to improve the situation of the Roma communities, regularise the situation of the stateless and develop cultural initiatives. The opposite view is held by the NGO Civil Rights Defenders, which in May 2018 presented a report on the situation of the Roma in the country entitled ‘The Hoop of Anti-Gypsyism: Roma in Serbia’, from which it emerged that, in the past twenty years, the national authorities did nothing to improve the living conditions of the Serb Roma, who it says are still suffering discrimination in the work market and to be victims of hate crimes that never lead to prosecution. It adds that a significant number of Roma are left stateless without the authorities doing anything to provide them with the documents necessary for regularisation, a requirement in order to live legally, avail of services, request social housing and to enter the world of work.

In seeking to understand the precarious conditions in which the Serb Roma are forced to live, it is very useful to examine the data elaborated by the Scholars Strategy Network, within the report ‘The Hard Life of Roma People in Serbia’, put together in 2015, which states that 60% of those people live in ethnic ghettos deprived of essential services such as electricity and potable water.
Other meaningful figures regard illiteracy which amounts to 80%; 60% unemployed; 20% of children never continue going to school after nursery school; 70% of children fail to complete primary school, and only an average of 8% of Roma finish secondary school.
The living conditions of Bosnian Roma are no better; they are forced to live in periphery settlements, deprived of contacts and relations with the rest of the population. In Bosnia too, there is a high rate of unemployment and school drop-outs among the Roma even though school attendance is obligatory, by law, in the country. Just as in many other countries, here too, the Roma have a bad reputation and are the victims of prejudice.

Bosnia-Herzegovina
Even though the civil registration of the Roma is still incomplete, the Roma in Bosnia-Herzegovina are estimated to be a minority of around 50-80,000 people. The data they possess regarding the demographic situation of the Bosnian ethnic group, according to studies the trend is similar to that of the Roma present in other countries of the Balkan Peninsula and, going by demographic data, it is foreseen that they will become the ethnic majority.

The population, in fact, is rapidly declining with the birth rate as low as 1.26 children per woman, the lowest in the area, and the eleventh worst in the world. As has happened in the other Baltic States, Bosnia-Herzegovina, between 1991 and today, has suffered the loss of more than a million people, declining from around 4,400,000 inhabitants to 3,300,000. The causes of depopulation, also in this case, can be traced to the high level of emigration among the younger generations and in the inability of governments to prepare plans for demographic improvement since they are obliged to work with continually decreasing public funds and mounting social and economic pressures.
Meanwhile, in Serbia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina, just as in the rest of the Balkan Peninsula, the failed integration of the Roma could become a real social threat for the entire European Union, as well as a territory to be conquered by those actors who, taking advantage of the fragility of these countries, intend to broaden their range of action.

Filippo Romeo

Romania, with its 19.6 million inhabitants, is going through a shocking demographic depopulation crisis. If the present pace were to continue, according to calculations made by the Romanian National Statistics Institute, the population would be reduced by around eight million in a matter of forty years, to below eleven million by 2060.

According to experts, this imbalance is due to the fact that families in Romania have an average of 1.6 children per couple and, in order to maintain present levels, this indicator would have to be increased to 2.1 children per couple.
Almost all ethnic groups in the country have shown a numerical reduction with the exception of the Romani who have registered a considerable increase and, according to Vasile Gheţău, Director of the CRD, the Romani will amount to 40% of the total population, becoming the most numerous ethnic group in the following twenty years.

This increase is believed to be due to the large and constant gap, noted also in Romania, between the fertility rate of Romanian women, stabilised at 1.6 children for each woman, and that of the Romani, which stands at 3.0 children per woman. The gap is also found in the threshold of the aged. That is, before 2030, 31% of Romanians would be made up of people above the age of 65, while among the Romani, only 3% of the Romani community will be over 65, with 47.3% of its people below the age of twenty.
This phenomenon is constantly being underestimated by political decision-makers, despite its effects being so clearly evidenced in the social fabric of the country. A closer look reveals a proliferation of quarters and villages inhabited by Romani but, despite this fact, there is no sign of integration with any of the other ethnic groups. Among these quarters, Fernentari, situated in the south west of Bucharest, is the most striking example: they are real ghettos with very precarious conditions of hygiene and a high level of crime and drug addiction proliferation.

In the view of most experts, it is precisely the precarious condition of hygiene of those places, together with the fact that the inhabitants, who do not follow the laws of the state, have not respected the rule of social distancing and so facilitated the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic more than in other Eastern European and Balkan countries. To understand how much of a threat that could be created by the failure of these populations to integrate, we only have to remember the matter of the violent protests which broke out in Rahova, a quarter of Bucharest, actually during the period of quarantine on Orthodox Easter Sunday. On that occasion, one of the Romani leaders, known as ‘Spartacus’ encouraged his fellow nationals, by means of social media announcements, to violate the quarantine and rise up against forces of order. The revolt which followed, lasting more than 24 hours, caused many injuries and 11 arrests. What happened was no isolated incident. In Romania, to be exact, episodes of violence between Romani communities and the forces of order are becoming ever more frequent and so render relations between the Romani community and the rest of the population increasingly conflictual.

However, in the country as a whole, the situation of the Romani is not made up exclusively of people who live in ghettos, but there are also families that have become well off with their various businesses and live a dignified life. One example of this is the community living in Buzescu, a city commune with a population of just under five thousand and located in the district of Teleorman in the historical region of Muntenia. There Romani families of the Calderash group, who, over the years, made their fortunes by trading in metal, live in sumptuous villas.
The Romani community in Romania is represented in parliament by the Romani Party led by Nicolae Păun which has a reserved seat in the House of Representatives and is the only political power dedicated exclusively to Romani questions. However, it is the National Agency for the Romani which is concerned with their inclusion, with poor results.

It is an organisation which is directly dependent upon the government of Bucharest, which represents the ethnic group and promotes, together with other authorities such as the National Council for the Struggle against Discrimination, projects aimed at improving the conditions of the Romani, with hitherto disappointing results.
It is evident that if the social condition of these populations were not to improve, ethnic transition could become a very serious matter since the majority of the population would find itself living in conditions of illegality, social exclusion and a high level of conflict. This would create nothing less than a social time bomb ready to undermine the integrity of the state. (F.R.)