Munich has one, Berlin has two, Hamburg have one, and even towns like Bielefeld or Karlsruhe can afford them: Passing-through-places for migrating Roma and Sinti.

Frankfurt has tried several times to establish such a place - without success. The problem is that not one of the disctric advisory boards was willing to offer an adequate area in his district", says the manager of the office for multicultural matters, Mrs . Rosi Wolf-Almanasreh. On the contrary - when the search for a place was announced, the district advisory boards already protested as a precautional measure. It is strange, that almost every district really does want such a place because they all have alr eady experienced problems with the camping of illegal travellers, but they do not want this place in their own district.

After many years they have now agreed with the advisory board of district 4 to establish such a site at the Osthafen (East Harbour), Schielestraße. The Green Party" had applied for DM 65.000,-- for a road-metal surface, water- and electric supply, and sani tary facilities of the site. However, the discussion of this subject in May was not successful. Even to-day the setup of the place is still in progress". Although most of the democratic parties have agreed to the plan in general, the CDU still wants to ta ke a closer look at the project. That means, that Frankfurt will not have such a place even this summer.

But in summer specially the West European Sinti and Roma start travelling with their caravans, visiting their friends and relatives for a few days or longer, and around their camping sites the conflicts with the neighbours are inevitable. Traditionally, th e popularity" of the gypsies is extremely low.

For the authorities it is difficult to solve the problem. The migrants are often stateless and cannot be expelled because they have no destination country". It is also useless to expel them from the site and to escort them to the motorway, because they wou ld then take the next exit.

Therefore, it would be really a good solution to establish the site at Schielestraße. The Roma Union also supports this project. Perhaps it may succeed next year.