ITALY: OSCE HUMAN DIMENSION MEETING DEMARCHE

C O N F I D E N T I A L ROME 000995 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/06/2018 TAGS: OSCE PREL PHUM KDEM IT SUBJECT: ITALY: OSCE HUMAN DIMENSION MEETING DEMARCHE DELIVERED REF: STATE 76294 Classified By: A/DepPolCouns Elisabeth Rosenstock-Siller for reasons 1. 4 (b) and (d). (C) POLOFF delivered reftel demarche to MFA OSCE Office Director Elena Basile August 5, sharing USG concerns about discrimination against Italy's Roma and Sinti minority in the lead-up to the fall OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM) in Warsaw. Basile thanked us for sharing these concerns in private before the HDIM, and said she would relay them to the cabinet of FM Frattini. Basile said the government has received criticism from EU institutions and the Council of Europe over the ongoing "census" of camp residents and recent violence targeting Roma and Sinti. She also pointed out that an OSCE delegation recently visited Italy on a fact-finding mission to survey Italian fulfillment of OSCE commitments. The government has prepared a detailed response to the various criticisms leveled against it, and said she did not expect the GOI's position to change. Basile questioned why this demarche was being delivered in Rome, instead of at the Italian mission to the OSCE in Vienna, which she thought was a more appropriate forum, given that it concerns Italian commitments to a multilateral organization, and not bilateral commitments between the United States and Italy. She said a formal response would be forthcoming. SPOGLI