The European Commission and the French Presidency are jointly hosting today (September 16) the first ever EU Roma Summit in Brussels.

Attended by more than 400 people including NGO representatives, Member States and World Bank officials, as well as the EU Commissioners for internal affairs, labour, social policy and education, the Summit is trying to find ways and means to tackle integration problems of the Roma people across Europe.

Speaking to New Europe on the sidelines of the Summit, Shigeo Katsu, World Bank Vice President for Europe and Central Asia Region said, "The first Conference in Budapest in June 2003 attracted more than 600 participants including the World Bank, the UNDP, Council of Europe, the European Commission and the Soros Foundation." "There the Roma Initiative was established with four broad areas of concern: Education, health, housing and jobs.

Out of these four, as education was found to be crucial to the Initiative, the Roma Education Fund was organised and it has more than 20 donors today and Mr. (George) Soros is becoming a key driver for this Initiative."

"Looking at individual country programmes the social uplifting at grass root level is being provided for most disadvantaged group which in our case here is Roma," he told New Europe.

"We are working with the governments to develop Institutional Development Capacity so that these can become capable of receiving EU's structural funds and implement programmes," he added.

Clarifying that the World Bank projects are always government projects, Katsu said, "When we start programmes, we are involved in designing the programmes and then after funding, we support implementation and do the necessary reviews periodically."

Asked to comment if he is happy with the progress made so far, Katsu said, "No, we still have a long way to go. Although we can say we have come some way since 2003, we need to push further and step up to next level."

Other dignitaries attending were European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso along with Bernard Kouchner, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs and Christine Boutin, Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs (on behalf of the French EU Presidency), several ministers from EU Member States and candidate countries as well as George Soros, Chair of the Open Society Institute and Romani Rose, President of the German Central Council of Sinti and Roma.

Political pundits and social observers pointed out that this Roma Summit is the first time that EU institutions, national governments and civil society organisations representing the Roma community from around Europe are getting together at the highest level platform to discuss the situation of Roma in the EU and find ways to improve it.

Although the European Community Law prohibits discrimination on the basis of race and ethnic origins in all areas of life, its a common knowledge that discrimination against Roma persists.