E. Europe nations vow to aid Gypsies

SOFIA, Bulgaria -- Eight Eastern European states launched a 10-year initiative yesterday to help millions of Roma Gypsies escape discrimination, segregation, and poverty that has pushed them to the margins of mainstream society.

Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, and Serbia and Montenegro pledged new anti-discrimination laws, integration in schools, improvements to settlement infrastructure, and measures to raise dismal health standards among the Roma.

''Our governments will work to lift discrimination and overcome unacceptable differences between the Roma and the remaining members of society," they said in a joint declaration after launching the 2005-2015 Decade of Roma Inclusion.

The initiative, by states which include newcomers, aspirants, and neighbors to the European Union, is the first major coordinated effort to tackle the so-called ''Roma problem."

Over half of Europe's estimated 10 million Roma live in the former communist east, where stereotypes branding them as lazy thieves have largely poisoned the majority psyche against them.

World Bank president James Wolfensohn, whose organization is leading the program with the EU and George Soros' Open Society Institute, said the Roma's plight was unique.

''Poverty is not just a lack of money," he said in a speech.

''Here we have . . . an absolutely identifiable condition of bias and intolerance, caricatures of cultures, and indeed, active ignorance and promotion of difference by those who have against those who have not."

Thought to have migrated from northern India about 1,000 years ago, Roma are now Europe's largest minority.

Despite the booming prosperity that has accompanied the EU expansion into Eastern Europe, the region's Roma are up to 10 percent more likely to live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.

Tens of thousands inhabit squalid shantytowns without roads, electricity, or running water, and their children often attend segregated schools or those for the mentally handicapped.

Adult Roma face massive unemployment, as high as 100 percent in some settlements, and studies indicate that their average life span is 10 to 15 years shorter than other Europeans.

Roma also face institutionalized racism on a grand scale, activists say.

''The position of Roma presents the most egregious case of ethnic exclusion in Europe. It will require strong and persistent efforts to overcome it," Soros said.

''Together, we must make sure that the lofty goals announced today do not turn into empty words."