‘Western Gypsies and Travellers’-‘Eastern Roma’: the creation of political objects by the institutions of the European Union

This article considers how the discourse of EU institutions on ‘Gypsies’ and ‘Roma’ has developed over time and how political space was and continues to be opened up in the process. It reveals that the evolution of that discourse contains a radical break. A dividing line separates a debate, now largely marginalised, on the situation of ‘Gypsies’ in Western Europe held in the European Community in the 1970s and 1980s from a high-profile discussion of the situation of ‘Roma’ in Eastern Europe carried out in the course of EU Enlargement. It shows how this divide allows for the inscription of ethnicity as a category relevant to ‘Eastern Europe’ while avoiding this with regard to the ‘Western’ part of the continent. In substantiating these claims, the article reveals how two different interpretative patterns have consecutively channelled the discourse of EC/EU institutions.