More than any other country, Germany incorporates the continuity of the persecution of the Romani people through history. Nothing is comparable with the Nazi genocide on Roma, and no current policy is comparable with the power Germany exerts in today's Europe.

Germany has a special role in coordinating Romani East-West migrations, characterized by two main factors;
 

• It is strongly affected by events in eastern Europe, including migration, due to its geographic position and to its expanded contact network with central-eastern Europe;
• Since reunification, it has begun to redefine its political role in both domestic and international affairs, often using foreign policy as an instrument for securing public support on the short-term domestic political front. Fighting immigration and immigrants has proven to be such an issue, with the Roma as the traditional scapegoat on the top of the list of unwanted foreigners "flooding" Germany.

In it's passivity toward the Romani situation, Germany already falls behind its obligations as a member of the international community and the EC: It refuses to acknowledge the Roma as an national minority, it refuses to implement European and international resolutions and recommendations, it refuses to allow naturalization of Roma born in Germany or even renaturalization of Roma who lost their citizenship during the Nazi dictatorship. German authorities also continuously refuse to take part in round table discussions with Romani representatives, other than those appointed and directed by the Federal Government itself. German police have been repeatedly criticized by international organizations - recently by the UN-Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in its session in Geneva on 11-12 August, 1993 - for its passive role in violent attacks by right-wing radicals against minority groups.

Germany also refuses to implement the Geneva Convention on Refugees: It's Asylum and Aliens Acts include no administrative regulations for applying the Convention, a fact that has often been criticized by UNHCR and refugee organizations. Some 200 applications in accordance with the Geneva Convention were filed by Romani families in May 1990, and have never been processed according to procedure, despite repeated petitions by Romani organizations, lawyers and members of the Bundestag.

The unique quality of Germany's active measures are recognizable in its efforts to tie economic aid to restrictions on migrations: Germany has signed treaties with a number of eastern European governments (Poland, Czech Republic, Rumania, Slovakia, Croatia), allowing indiscriminate deportation of stateless refugees (e.g. from former Yugoslavia) to the partner countries. The partners are expected to prevent potential refugees from leaving or crossing their territory without necessary visa.

By declaring its neighbors "secure third states," (transit through which does not entitle refugees to file an asylum application), while at the same time refusing international cooperation on support for refugees and on eliminating human rights violation, Germany has provoked a chain reaction across Europe: No state can allow itself to confront the problems of the Romani refugees constructively, for fear of carrying the burden of granting protection and security alone. Thus, eastern European governments have followed the model introduced by Germany with each of the parties and have signed bilateral treaties among themselves, aiming to restrict the movement of potential refugees.

Despite the fact that the treaties are an instrument to restrict Romani migration, the economic aid granted by Germany in return for cooperation in preventing migration is not specified in terms of development aid intended for the benefit of the Romani community. Thus, Germany has succeeded in establishing a precedence for using western economic aid as a tool for restricting freedom of movement, rather than controlling the protection of human rights. By doing so, it not only fails to assume responsibility towards minority rights in a changing eastern European society, but it also encourages restrictions imposed on minorities.