E/CN.4/2001/21 page 43 follow-up to his visit to Budapest in 1999. The Ambassador welcomed the report on the visit and indicated that measures were being taken to facilitate the gradual integration of the Roma into Hungarian society. Particular attention was being paid to the question of special schools for the Roma. These measures were outlined in an official publication (“Measures taken by the State to promote the social integration of Roma living in Hungary”), which had been forwarded to the Special Rapporteur. The Ambassador hoped that the Special Rapporteur would make a second visit to Hungary to appreciate the Government’s efforts to combat discrimination against Gypsies in the fields of education, employment, health and economic and social instruction. 145. A complex medium-term programme will be implemented in stages. An initial tranche of 7.2 billion forint has been earmarked for this purpose in the State budget for the year 2000; this money will be used to improve the situation of Gypsies in the following fields: (i) teaching and education; (ii) award of scholarships; (iii) retraining for the long-term unemployed; (iv) agriculture; and (v) support for National Roma Self-Government and local self-government for the community. 146. Besides the medium-term programme, and with the assistance of an expert from the Council of Europe, the Hungarian Government is formulating a long-term strategy aimed at the social integration of the Gypsy population. Distinguished members of the National Roma Self-Government and other Roma organizations are involved in the elaboration of this strategy. The long-term Roma strategy will be submitted in draft form to the Government as early as September 2000, and then to the National Assembly, which will be called upon to adopt a resolution on key guidelines for the coming decades to address the difficult problem of the Gypsies. 147. The Special Rapporteur’s attention has been drawn to the case of certain Gypsies who were driven out of the town of Zamoly and subsequently sought asylum in Strasbourg in France. The Hungarian Government has provided information outlining the chronology of events and citing the efforts that have been made to ensure that the families concerned are rehoused in Zamoly. A statement of the Hungarian Government’s position may be consulted in the files of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. 148. In addition, the Hungarian Government has stated that: “Evaluating the regrettable saga of the “Zámoly affair”, which has now already been running for three years, we have to express our sympathy to the relatives of the fatal victim of the conflict, the 21-year-old young man from Csakvar, Ferenc Csete. It is our conviction that the governmental agencies and the National Roma Self Government have, in recent years, made significant and effective efforts to sort out the problems of the Roma families of Zámoly. One of these efforts has been the construction - exclusively from state budget funds - of apartments for the Roma families, apartments of considerably better quality than their earlier homes. During the actual construction itself, the Roma of Zámoly -