The mayors of four municipalities in southeast Slovenia with Roma communities have issued a renewed call on the government to take immediate action regarding the Roma, after a girl was shot in an apparent dispute between two families in a Roma settlement over the weekend.

The police said the underage girl injured in the incident in the Roma village of Šmihel on the outskirts of Novo Mesto on 8 September appears to have been an accidental victim of the shooting. The girl was taken to hospital and the suspected shooter, a 51-year-old man, was detained.

Shortly after the shooting a fire broke out in the shooter's house with the police suspecting the house was set on fire in retaliation for the shooting by other residents of the village. The fire was put out by firefighters and police restored the order.

Heated debate

The shooting came after weeks of intense media coverage and heated debate and about the Roma community prompted by an attack this summer on police officers who wanted to arrest an underage driver who refused to stop his vehicle, and a violent attack by a Roma student on his peer in Brežice at the end of last school year.

Police presence in the areas had been beefed up even before the attack on the police officers following reports about increased number of thefts and other incidents, including a shooting at a car.

The problems have been discussed in parliament and government officials have been visiting local communities in southeastern Slovenia pledging to take action. So far, most of the pledges have revolved around ways to improve the security situation, although local communities have been calling for broader measures.

The latest shooting shows that "the Roma pose the greatest threat to themselves" and that "claims that this is about intolerance of the majority population against the Roma are not true," Novo Mesto Mayor Gregor Macedoni said on 9 September.

"We need to see things for what they really are. A few field visits by government representatives trying to calm the situation is not enough to address an issue that has much deeper roots," he said.

The incidents brought to the fore long-simmering tensions and turned the tables on the narrative: the plight of the Roma community, mostly living in squalid conditions, used to be in the foreground, but now the focus has shifted on problems within Roma communities, especially crime and the refusal of the Roma to send their children to school.

Although Roma also live in the northeast of the country, there are no such problems there. The Roma communities there also live in much better conditions.

Košir thinks legislative changes are urgently needed and called on the justice and interior ministries to fast-track bills. He also called for a national debate on "whether welfare is really untouchable for those who break the law" and on changes expanding police powers.

Similar points were raised by Črnomelj Mayor Andrej Kavšek and Brežice Mayor Ivan Molan, the latter adding that government officials should "do their job or resign" since their inaction is bad for everyone, in particular the Roma who are trying to obey the law.

"We've come to the point where locals are afraid of the Roma, including those who come with good intentions. This does not help the Roma community, it hurts it. I hope people in parliament who are still burying their head in the sand realise that at some point," said Molan.

Some measures in the pipeline

Dan Juvan, a state secretary at the Ministry of Labour, the Family and Equal Opportunities, told parliament last week the ministry was drafting a bill that will cut welfare if children did not attend kindergarten.

"We know that those who do not enrol their children in kindergarten get a 20% higher child allowance. This measure is outdated, it dates back to the days when we had fully occupied kindergartens," he said.

The ministry also announced plans to open several multi-purpose Roma centres, secure 130 additional jobs in individual social work centres, and open three day centres for children from the Roma community to boost integration efforts.

But the ministry has been reserved about proposals for social transfers to the Roma to be paid in kind or suspended if their children do not attend school and other harsher measures proposed by the mayors from SE Slovenia and the opposition.

"We don't want to turn social work centres and social transfers into some kind of repressive apparatus and tool for punishment," Igor Feketija, one of the state secretaries at the ministry, explained.

Some local communities are trying to resolve the situation in their own way with Ribnica Mayor Samo Pogorelc telling the Roma their settlements will be connected to the public water supply system when the Roma meet certain obligations and join the integration process. Following the statements he received death threats.