Catalin Chereches, mayor of Romania's northern town of Baia Mare, gestures while speaking on the phone in his office in Baia Mare, 550 km northwest of Bucharest, in this picture taken June 18, 2012. Building a wall that closes in a Roma neighbourhood and rehousing families in a dilapidated communist-era office block have earned Chereches accusations of racism. But the actions have also helped the mayor to become the country's most popular local politician and shown how central Europe's lacklustre economies and widespread poverty can trigger radical solutions. Roma is a term for various groups who have migrated across Europe for centuries and are now the biggest ethnic minority in the European Union, most of them from countries like Romania, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. There are an estimated 10 million across Europe and one in five lives in Romania. The vast majority live on the margins of society in abject poverty, which makes them easy targets in troubled times, and pro-democracy groups say post-communist governments in the region have not done enough to improve their plight. Picture taken June 18. To match Feature ROMANIA-ROMA/ REUTERS/Bogdan Cristel (ROMANIA - Tags: REAL ESTATE BUSINESS POLITICS)