> a bit racist
It's more than a bit. It's institutionalised and pervasive racism.
One big difference from the US is that Eastern-Europeans don't even acknowledge there is any racism against gypsies so it's not even part of the public discourse. Much like how fish don't realise they're surrounded by water, so do Eastern Europeans not acknowledge that they live in a racist society. The tensions flaring up in the US are partly caused by the fact that the opressed category is trying to get equal footing in society. If gypsies were to start talking about how they should be treated equally, you can bet there would be a backlash from a big part of society.
For comparison, look at how the US treated race relations 100 years ago. (To be clear, I'm not saying Eastern-European countries are backwards or more primitive just because they can be compared to the US in the past; it's just a helpful way to understand the context.)
Source: I'm originally from an Eastern European country and only realised the racism in Eastern Europe once I lived abroad for multiple years and drew parallels with the highly mediatised US racial tensions.