This doesn't suirprise me at all. In E. Europe Roma gypsies are often subject to open racism and widely despised. The official statements being released by Romanian authorities about how unacceptable what's going on in NI are may be sincere but in my experience, some governments in that region have been rather more open about the reality and only too happy to 'encourage' these people to migrate as far away as possible...
Some examples:
http://www.radstats.org.uk/no069/article4.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7098864.stm
http://www.faithineurope.org.uk/roma.pdf