ABSTRACT
The contemporary politics of fear is often connected to the way different international organizations and states govern migration and especially the position of poor unwanted migrants, such as Romani migrants. This chapter traces the political and legal discourse connected to the governance of Romani migration in Europe. First, it shows how the states and the EU institutions governed the movement of Roma who were EU citizens living in EU Member States other than their own country of citizenship. Second, it offers an analysis of the migration of Roma third country nationals, who sought asylum in different EU Member States. On the basis of this analysis, this chapter argues that the notion of Romani migration was used and abused as a symptom within broader political debates on the governance of migration. With the approach of risk management and securitization, the politics around Romani migration in many cases presented the limits of when certain rights should apply to migrants in general, not only to Roma.
