Austria ? Gypsies remain among Europe’s most discriminated-against people, the European Union’s racism watchdog agency said Friday on the international remembrance day for Gypsies.

Gypsies, who prefer to be known as Roma, are routinely denied jobs, housing, education and health care, said the Vienna-based EU Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia.

The center’s director, Beate Winkler, said Gypsies living in many of the EU’s 25 member states suffer “systematic discrimination,” and she called for a more intensive effort and greater political will to eliminate the bias and help lift Europe’s Gypsy communities out of poverty.

An estimated 6.2 million Gypsies live in Europe, according to estimates by the U.N.-affiliated International Organization for Migration.