(Strasbourg) “Taking urgent measures to develop and implement a specific nationwide legal framework to protect the Roma, Sinti and travelling communities”: this is the call made to Italy by the Council of Europe. It is above all the Advisory committee of the CoE Framework Convention for the protection of national minorities that calls on Rome’s government. Today, the Advisory Committee published a document, in which it calls the country “to deploy substantial, effective efforts to prevent, fight against and punish inequalities and discrimination that the Roma, Sinti and travellers are exposed to, and to improve their living conditions”, so that even people who live in “Roma camps” can leave them and move to proper public housing. The Council of Europe thinks that such part of the population is “economically and socially excluded”; in addition, it points to the problem of children’s schooling (dropouts). In the report published today, the Council of Europe acknowledges the progress in Italy and the results achieved in the protection of historical minorities, especially linguistic ones. But while “the general climate” is one “of openness and tolerance”, there are still wide pockets of “xenophobia and anti-ziganism”. Discriminatory, racist and intolerant language has also been found in “some political speeches” and in some media.