Published: Friday, 19th December, 2008 5:00pm

Romanian ambassador urges community cooperation

ROMANIA'S top diplomat this week launched a campaign to repair his fellow countrymen's image in Slough.

The Observer was invited to meet ambassador Ion Jinga at the Romanian Embassy to hear his plans to heal community relations, following a series of damaging revelations involving Romanian immigrants, including child trafficking.

The ambassador was keen to stress these incidents are not representative and planned to hold a series of cultural and business exchanges to encourage understanding and mutual respect.

He said police figures, such as those showing a 54% reduction in thefts since raids on Romanian immigrants in Chalvey, were "over-estimated."

"Romanians are far from being considered dangerous. Police figures show just one per cent of crimes were committed by immigrants from Eastern and Central Europe, which is a region made up of 12 countries. Most of these are low-level crime."

He denied Roma gypsies, who travel to Britain from across Eastern Europe, posed a particular problem to the British authorities.

Since the Chalvey raids in February the Embassy has been frustrated by the British government's failure to sign an EU treaty against child trafficking, for which the large Romanian border is particularly vulnerable.

However, The ambassador acknowledges a need to communicate better with Romanian immigrants and British citizens: "I think we would be wise to create a means to communicate with the Romanian community. Romanians can communicate through the churches, which are useful as warnings or signals that we could send to British authorities."

He added that he would visit the borough in the new year, and appealed for musicians, artists and businesses to sign up to exchange seminars: "The target is not only the British government but people in the street. Our approach is if you want to be respected it is important to be known."