Treatment of Minorities
As in the past in Romania, there was a high level of xenophobia in 2013. Submitted surveys conducted in 2013 by the order of the NCCD, 67% of respondents believe that discrimination occurs “often” or “very often.” 46% believe that discrimination will remain at the same level in the coming years. Only 11% believe that the level will decrease, and 28% believe it will increase.
According to the survey agency IRES in October-November 2013, discrimination is recognized as the most prominent problem of society by 59% of respondents (in 2011 these were 51%), 31% do not consider it a major problem. Thus we can speak about the growth of the level of discrimination in the minds of the inhabitants of Romania. The most discriminated groups in the opinion of the respondents are HIV-positive and the Roma (as believed by 67% of respondents), LGBT (50%).
Results of a sociological survey have been published on February 6, 2014, indicated that 49% of Romanians have negative attitude towards Hungarians. They are followed by Ukrainians and Russians. Citizens of Romania consider these three countries as the main external political opponents.
Like respondents in Central and Eastern Europe, Romanians are less accepting of Muslims, gay marriage and legal abortion, showed a series of surveys conducted by Pew Research Center in 2018-2019. A total of 29% of Romanians would be willing to accept Muslims as members of their family. In Bulgaria, 32% of the respondents would do so, in Moldova – 30%, and in Hungary – 21%. A total of 39% of Romanian respondents said they would be willing to accept Jews as members of their family.
In Romania, as in almost every Central and Eastern European country surveyed, less than half of adults said they were ready to accept Muslims into their families. In contrast, in almost every Western European country surveyed, more than half said they would accept a Muslim into their family. At the same time, 74% of Romanian respondents said that being a Christian is very or somewhat important in order to truly share their national identity. This is in line with attitudes in other Eastern European countries where Christianity (whether Catholic or Orthodox) is an important component of national identity.
More than half of Romanians (66%) consider their national culture to be superior to others and fully or mostly agree with the statement "Our people are imperfect, but our culture is superior to others." In Bulgaria 69% agree with this, in Bosnia 68%, in Serbia 65%, in Russia 69% and in Greece 89%. In contrast, only 20% agreed with this statement in Spain, 26% in Sweden and 23% in Belgium and Estonia.
The same poll showed that 74% of Romanians oppose same-sex marriage, similar to 70% in Greece, 71% in Estonia, 79% in Bulgaria and 92% in Moldova. On the other hand, 88% of Swedish citizens are in favor of same-sex marriage, followed by 86% in Denmark, 86% in the Netherlands, 82% in Belgium, and 77% in Spain and the UK. A referendum held this October in Romania to change the Constitution and ban same-sex marriage recorded a very low turnout and was declared invalid.
In terms of support for legal abortions, 58% of Romanian respondents said that abortions should be legal in all or most cases, while 40% were of the opinion that they should be illegal. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe that support legal abortions are the Czech Republic (84%), Estonia (81%) and Bulgaria (80%).
Typically, according to another Pew Research report about attitudes towards Roma, 65% of respondents would not like Roma to become members of their family. 48% would not want to coexist with Roma and 32% are ready to deny them the right to Romanian citizenship.
