EU seeks to embrace Gypsies

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BUDAPEST

If the European Union has its way, the Roma (also called Gypsies) will eventually emerge from their shantytowns and makeshift camps and shed the shackles of centuries-old dis- crimination.

Although that day may be distant, Europe's conscience has become aware of the plight of the Continent's most deprived minority.

To some, they represent the swarthy violinists in dimly lit nightclubs. But across Eastern Europe, misbehaving children often are warned "you'll be given to the Gypsies" -- those beggars and petty thieves who travel from town to town in horse-drawn caravans and live in deep poverty.

In Bulgaria, the average Gypsy without a permanent residence is believed to live on less than $4 a day.

No one knows their exact number, but the Roma population is estimated to be between 12 million and 15 million -- historical targets of persecution, hostility and pogroms. An estimated 500,000 of them died in Nazi World War II extermination camps.

Prompted by the European Union and the World Bank, seven Central and East European countries where the Roma form sizeable communities have agreed to work together over the next decade to ease their path to a normal life.

These countries -- Hungary, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Serbia-Montenegro -- intend to "abolish discrimination and bridge the abyss separating the Roma from the rest of the population."

The goal is daunting, considering the thousand years during which the Roma lived under "oppression, slavery and persecution," says Claude Cahn, executive director of the European Roma Rights Center.

Following temporary resettlement that eased their lot somewhat under communism, the collapse of the Soviet Bloc created a situation in which "the Roma bore the brunt of a rise in racism and racist violence," Mr. Cahn said.