Particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, the Roma were on the one hand recognized as national minorities in 1989, but in socio-economic terms, they experienced a dramatic downfall over the last 20 years, during the post-Communist period, due to several factors, including (1) structural changes in the economies, with large closures of industries and consequent losses of low-skilled jobs; (2) replacement in many jobs (for example in the building industry) by better-skilled immigrants from the territory of the former Soviet Union; (3) overall growing socio-economic differences (a dramatic rise in income differences between low-skilled and high-skilled occupations). After the disappearance of the coercive egalitarianism of the Communist system discrimination became more widespread (“the freedom to discriminate, to exclude”), with the emergence of far-right wing groupings, racist attacks by extremists, but also deliberate scapegoating by mainstream politicians. As a result there is a high unemployment rate among the Roma in Central and Eastern Europe have very high unemployment (whereas 20 years ago unemployment was practically non-existent). Increasingly they have been subject to evictions based on incapacity to pay rent, and group evictions – often organized by populist mayors themselves. These have often led to the creation of socially excluded, marginalized, segregated communities with no economic opportunities, often outside the limits of the city with little or no public transport connections. Roma women often face double discrimination and Roma children, who are often segregated in schools for children with intellectual disabilities, now have (at least in some countries) worse results than 20 years ago. Interestingly, Roma who emigrated to Canada or other non-European countries seem to have had much better educational results, which indicates to what extent their difficulties in their home countries are caused by pervasive discrimination. Similarly, it is remarkable how many Roma find jobs in multinational companies run by foreigners, for instance Koreans, who do not distinguish the Roma from the mainstream populations. Falling into absolute poverty, Roma families often lose their children, who are being taken into institutional care, sometimes due to abandonment, but often against the will of the parents. The EU-MIDIS study, carried out by FRA, demonstrated a very high incidence of discrimination experiences on the part of the Roma in most of the surveyed EU Member States. But what is being done?