When elected Members of the European Parliament stand up during an official debate and call Roma people “criminals,” or describe support for minorities as “money thrown in the bin”, it can be tempting to treat it as offensive language, not as a life-threatening one. However, the family in Cegléd, Hungary, knows otherwise.
Europe is failing to name what it refuses to see. The European Union is currently developing a programme called AgoraEU, which funds civic participation, democracy, and equality work across Europe. In a key section of this programme, known as Recital 15, there is a list of forms of racism and discrimination the programme commits to address.
Antigypsyism is not on that list. When something is named in EU law and funding programmes, it becomes a political priority. It determines where money flows, what protections are put in place, and who can be held accountable.
But even if antigypsyism might not be named in the documents, the phenomenon itself is very explicit in the institutions. Just a couple of weeks ago, the MEPs from Greece and Slovakia called the Roma criminals.
Both issues – the unpunished antigypsyism and the lack of its recognition – have consequences. Real ones. Ones that result in attacks in the middle of the night, with fire.
Just after midnight on April 19, in the Hungarian town of Cegléd, a family woke up to the sound of shattering glass and men screaming outside their door:
“You are going to die now!”
Two masked attackers stormed the family home after smashing the front door. Moments later, a flaming Molotov cocktail was thrown into the house where the parents and their eight children slept. The father managed to extinguish the fire before it spread further. Then he fought back to protect his family. Armed with a shovel handle, he tried to stop the attackers as his children screamed in terror behind him. One of the men attacked him with a stake, while another used a machete-like brush cutter, mutilating his hand.
According to reports, the attackers were linked to an extremist group calling themselves “Peacekeepers.” Police later seized weapons, ammunition, homemade firing devices, pyrotechnic materials, gunpowder, and swastika-emblazoned knuckle dusters from the suspects’ property.
The attack reportedly began over something ordinary. Children had cut down a few thin acacia trees to build a football goal. The owner of the acacia grove stormed into the family’s home earlier that day and physically dragged the mother outside. When the father intervened, the man left, only to return later that night with help, masked, armed, and ready to kill.
Police later identified the suspects as a 59-year-old local man and his 16-year-old son, alongside two teenage accomplices. Authorities launched investigations into armed trespassing and aggravated assault, causing permanent disability.
Romani families across Europe know this fear intimately, the fear that hatred can erupt into violence at any moment simply because they are Roma.
Between 2008 and 2009, a wave of neo-Nazi terror attacks swept through Romani communities across Hungary. Families were attacked in their homes with Molotov cocktails and guns. Six Roma people were murdered, including a five-year-old child. Dozens more were injured.
That was not the end of anything. It was a chapter in a story that has never stopped being written. The fascists did not disappear. They regrouped and, in some cases, got elected.
When Members of the European Parliament call Roma people criminals in an official debate, they are not just being offensive. They are telling the public what the Roma people deserve. They are making it easier for a man with a machete to tell himself he is doing something justified.
We strongly condemn the violent attack against a Romani family in Cegléd, where masked assailants stormed a home at night, reportedly shouting “You are going to die now!” before throwing a Molotov cocktail inside while eight children were sleeping.
The EU already has anti-racist laws, called the Racial Equality Directive. But the problem is that these laws are not being enforced properly, and must force member states to follow them. The antigypsyist remarks like those of the MEPs from Greece and Slovakia in the plenary must be publicly condemned and not allowed in the future
Moreover, antigypsyism must be explicitly named in AgoraEU and across EU policy. Not as a symbolic gesture, but because naming shapes priorities, funding, protection, and accountability. Because leaving it out is itself a political choice, and Roma families are living with the consequences of that choice.
A Roma family was attacked in Cegléd, Hungary. This did not happen in isolation. Hate speech from politicians and the lack of consequences for such creates an atmosphere where Roma people are seen as less than human, and that leads to real violence.
This attack in Cegléd is a warning to all of Europe.
