Warsaw  - An OSCE report launched Monday paints a "bleak picture" and shows "considerable gaps" in improving the situation of the Roma and Sinti people across Europe, officials said at an annual conference in Warsaw.

"The situation has not improved as much as hoped and expected" after the 56-member states adopted an action plan in 2003, said Ambassador Janez Lenarcic, director of the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. "There are still major steps to be taken to reach an acceptable level of implementation in our region."

The report - which focuses on areas such as racism, living conditions and health care - finds "substantial shortcomings" in bringing strategies into effect at the local level.

"Roma and Sinti communities continue to face disadvantages and discrimination in all areas of life," the report says, "from access to housing, health, education and employment, to relations with law- enforcement institutions, including the police."

The report cites insufficient funding, lack of political will at the national level and apathy or neglect to implement the policies outlined in 2003.

Progress remains "very slow" in returning property and rebuilding neighbourhoods of Kosovo's displaced Roma population, the report says.

Hungary has implemented Roma-related programmes, the report cites, but beneficiaries are not exclusively Roma and it is hard to say how many of them have benefited.

The report also cites "isolated but disturbing incidents" linked to the Roma's movement from EU states such as Romania and Bulgaria to older members such as Italy and Spain.

In the United Kingdom, the Roma have become a "target of media hostility," the report says, amid worries of a mass immigration after the EU's enlargement in 2004 and
2007.

Roma and Sinti communities can be mostly found in Central and South-Eastern Europe. Largely settled, some Roma remain travelers and make up Europe's largest minority group.

The report was launched as the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights kicked off a ten-day conference in Warsaw.

The conference is set to review a range of human rights and democracy issues across the 56-member states, officials said.

More than 1,000 government representatives, NGOs and human rights defenders are set to meet in Warsaw for the meeting focusing on freedom of religion, human trafficking and human rights education. (dpa)