French State Secretary for European Affairs Pierre Lellouche Thursday criticised the lack of concrete steps taken in Europe to end discrimination against the millions of Roma who live there. 'We cannot continue to indulge in statements of principle while we have this massive problem since the enlargement of Europe where we discovered amongst us this 'fourth world' of between nine and 12 million people,' he told selfnews by telephone from Cordoba where he is taking part in a European Roma summit. He said that aside from Spanish Minister of Social Affairs, Trinidad Jimenez, 'and a Romanian colleague. I have not seen other ministers. I have not seen the political will. I do not hide my disappointment.' 'These people live in a situation of discrimination, appalling conditions of under-education, underemployment, poor housing in slums, with migration from east to west toward the founding countries of the EU, including France, Spain and Italy, Belgium in particular,' said Lellouche. 'It is clear that populations that are ghettoised, discriminated against, with no chance of earning a living, drift into begging and delinquency. This is unacceptable. All this is making the bed of xenophobia and setting the stage for a harsh backlash from Europe.' Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, and the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, are amongst those notably absent from the two-day meeting which got underway Thursday in Cordoba. In January 2008 the European Parliament called for an EU-wide policy regarding the Roma, who are also called gypsies. They are one of the poorest and fastest growing minorities in Europe. 