Roma in an Expanding Europe: Challenges for the Future, a conference co-sponsored by the Open Society Institute, the World Bank, and the European Union, brought together Romani leaders, high-level government officials from eight Central and Eastern European countries, and other international leaders to address the need for Roma inclusion in policymaking processes. The conference, hosted by the Hungarian government in Budapest on June 30 and July 1, also gave Romani leaders the opportunity to identify the issues of most concern to their community.
Panel discussions focused on discrimination, education, employment, housing, and health. A separate Roma Women's conference, on June 29, highlighted the need to make gender equality part of the discourse on Roma integration.
At the closing session in the Hungarian parliament building, the governments of Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, and Slovakia each endorsed the "Decade of Roma Inclusion," which aims to provide a framework for governments to set their own goals for Roma integration. Roma and their advocates are hopeful that the governments' endorsement of the Decade, which was called for by George Soros, OSI's founder and chairman, will mark a turning point in the campaign for better minority policy in Central and Eastern Europe.