Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said Monday that he had cleared up ''misunderstandings'' with the European Union over a government census of Italy's gypsy camps.
Maroni told European Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot that he will send the EU a report by the end of the month on the implementation of government measures for what he described as the ''gypsy emergency''.
Barrot's spokesman, Michele Cercone, said the meeting on the sidelines of a summit of EU justice and interior ministers here had been ''very constructive''.
''It opened dialogue on the concrete application of measures carried out by the Italian government, which is what the European Commission is most concerned about,'' he said.
During a meeting with the European Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs standing committee president, Gerard Deprez, Maroni also invited EC representatives to come to Italy to see the condition of gypsy camps first hand.
Maroni's plan to take the fingerprints of gypsies - including children - during the census has come under heavy fire from opposition politicians, children's rights organisations, Catholic immigration foundation Migrantes and international bodies including the Council of Europe for discriminating against an ethnic minority.
However, the city prefects of Milan, Naples and Rome charged with overseeing the census have taken different approaches to fingerprinting.
In Naples and Milan, where the census is already under way, fingerprints have only been taken from between minors between the ages of 14 and 18 in Naples camps.
Milan prefect Gian Valerio Lombardi said fingerprinting will only be used in cases where gypsies refused to identify themselves.
Rome prefect Carlo Mosca said he had ruled out fingerprinting altogether but would require photos of gypsies who refused to identify themselves when the census starts in the capital later this week.
The European Parliament is meanwhile scheduled to vote on Thursday on a bill put forward by a group of left-wing Italian MEPs to block fingerprint collection in gypsy camps.
In the wake of concerns over public safety, Maroni has pledged to dismantle all illegal camps as well as authorised camps that do not have adequate facilities.
Government plans also call for the expulsion of any immigrant found to be in Italy without the correct paperwork.
The vast majority of the 152,000 gypsies living in Italy are of Romanian origin, while a small percentage come from the Balkans.
