Minister Evripidis Stilianidis organized a meeting in Komotini

At a meeting held on July 9th, 2009 in Komotini, former Minister of Education and Religious Affairs Evripidis Stilianidis explained the “Modern Minority Policy” of the Government of Greece. According to Millet weekly, at the meeting, at which mainly the issues of education and schools were discussed, there were about 200 participants, among them representatives of local governments that support the governing party New Democracy Party, and other eminent people.

Stilianidis talked about the “Modern Minority policy” of the Greek Government (!)

In his speech, Stilianidis summarized the activities of the New Democracy Party regarding the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace since 2004. Stilianidis informed the participants about the booklet published in Turkish, English and Greek, adding that the activities of his party regarding the Minority were actually positive and successful.

Stilianidis stated, “Thrace is a very good example of a open democratic society”, adding that the Government not only tried hard to improve the living standards in the region, but also modernized the infrastructure of schools to provide a more qualified education. With regard to the issue of religion, Stilianidis defined the “Appointed Imams Law”, which was seriously criticized by the Minority, as a step to strengthen respect for Islam.

“Talk of former Minister of Education and Religious Affairs does not go beyond repeating the already known facts. Is it possible to define an understanding, which does not consider other party’s views, as a “modern minority policy”? When you do not take the opinion of the Minority about the issues that directly affect it, then you can not say “all these are for the Minority”. Such decisions and implementations are only for themselves. Yet, we are happy that the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace can understand the logic and the real beneficiaries of the Greek minority policy. The New Democracy Party, which has been in office since 2004, has not realized any of its pre-election promises. Furthermore, the Minority faces serious problems due to the implementation of “Appointed Imams Law” which was adopted during the governance of the New Democracy Party. On the education front, the members of the Minority see that despite all the efforts to solve the problems stemming from “bilingual minority kindergartens” implementation, there is no improvement on that side. In such an environment, Stilianidis talk about the “Modern Minority Policy” is clearly a move towards the Minority before a possible early election.” commented Halit Habipoglu, President of ABTTF.