FUEN President Hans Heinrich Hansen voiced the stalemate caused by the denial of 20 Turkish minority children to primary school in Echinos

Hansen: As the creditors, is it not normal to expect Greece to comply with the minimum re-quirements of democratization?

The Annual Conference of German Minorities Working Group held 23-25 October 2012 has been organized by Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) in Berlin. The working group was established in 1991 by the German minority associations under the umbrella of FUEN. The thirteen members of the working group discussed on finding effective means to carry the problems of the minority to the international level. ABTTF Young Spokesperson and the new YEN President Fatma Reşit participated in the conference.

The problems of the Western Thrace Turkish minority was on the agenda of the Annual Conference of German Minorities Working Group

During his speech in the meeting hosted by Hartmut Koschyk, Parliamentary State Secretary of Ger-man Federal Finance Ministry and the National Chairman of the Association for German cultural relations abroad eV (VDA) and regional parliamentarians of Bayreuth, Germany on 24 October 2012, Hansen mentioned about his visit to Western Thrace, the region which forms the borderline between Greece and Turkey. He provided an insight about the Western Thrace Turkish minority by clarifying that Turkish population present in the region are Greek citizens and their cultural auton-omy is guaranteed by the Lausanne Treaty signed in 1923.

Hansen furthermore specified that in the aftermath of the Military Junta in 1967 and Turkey’s inter-vention to Cyprus, the living conditions of the Turkish speaking minority have been worsened. FUEN President transmitted the current education crisis he witnessed in Echinos during his visit to the region. The officials from the Ministry of Education denied the registry of 20 children to the bi-lingual Minority Primary school on the grounds of having failed to attend the Greek public kindergarten. Hansen explained the peculiar situation the principal of school, opposing to the atti-tude of the Greek officials, was forced to such that the pupils in the first year of primary school was given the Turkish books by the principal whereas they were deprived of the Greek books on the command of vice-principal of the school.

Upon this, despite its long-standing membership to the European Union since 1981, Hansen drew the attentions on the fact that Greece has ratified neither the Framework Convention for the Protec-tion of National Minorities nor the European Charter for Regional nor Minority Languages. From this point of view, Hansen has asked to the audience whether it is not a justified demand of the creditors to ask Greece to comply with the minimum requirements of democratization. In conclu-sion, Hansen pointed out the increasing importance of cooperation in unified Europe and the pres-ence of a common belief for Europe in the current situation.


Pictures: www.koschyk.de; https://www.facebook.com/FUEN.FUEV.UFCE