European Parliament Conference on minority rights in Greece violently interrupted by Greek Members of Parliament

A conference in the European Parliament on minority rights in Greece, which was attended last week by FUEN Vice Presidents Halit Habipoglu (also President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe), Loránt Vincze and FUEN advisor Frank de Boer, received a lot of media coverage.

The meeting was violently interrupted by two Members of the European Parliament of the fascist Golden Dawn party and their assistants. The intruders denied loudly the existence of any other minority than the “Muslim minority”. The row was recorded on camera.

The conference ‘Freedom of Association in Greece: A Loophole in European Minority Rights Standards’ was hosted by Csaba Sógor, a Hungarian MEP from Romania representing FUEN member organisation RMDSZ. The meeting was organised by the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) and the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO).

The conference started with introduction speeches by Nils Torvalds (one of the co-chairs of the Minority Intergroup in the European Parliament) and Halit Habipoglu (President of ABTTF and Vice-President of FUEN), before entering into the details of the situation in Greece with Dr Panayote Dimitras (Spokesperson of the Greek Helsinki Monitor), Eugenia Natsoulidou (Founder of the Macedonian Educative and Culture Movement of EDESSA), Melek Kırmacı Arık (International Affairs Director of ABTTF), and Johanna Green (Programme Manager at UNPO). 

All speakers mentioned the gap between rhetoric and action, namely, that although Greece claims to protect its minorities’ rights, this is neither true in law or in fact. Indeed, in law, the only minority group recognised by the Greek government is the Muslim minority, thus no legal recognition of ethnic minorities such as the Turks or Macedonians is in place. On this point, Eugenia Natsoulidou referred to the ‘unsolvable problem’ of the Greek constitution’s Article 16(2) – on the development of national and religious conscience – which enables Greek politicians to dictate how the citizens should think and feel. Dr Panayote Dimitras then stressed the fact that the majority of the Greek population (including the politicians themselves) have a very limited knowledge about minority rights and issues, and that without awareness there could be no hope of change.

Another important topic raised throughout the conference was that there are a number of cases brought against Greece at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) by minority groups in Greece who had not been allowed to register their organisations because they used the word “Turkish” or “Macedonian” in their name. In these cases the Court found Greece to have violated the groups’ right to freedom of association (Article 11) under the European Convention on Human Rights. Strikingly, none of these judgments have been acted on, and the speakers all pushed for the recognition and implementation of these rulings.

The conference confirmed that more dialogue and debate is needed both at the national and European levels to overcome the politics of fear that continue to hamper progressive reform of minority rights legislation. As Melek Kırmacı emphasised, the non-implementation of the ECtHR judgments is not due simply to procedural reasons, but rather linked to the political question of recognising the Muslim minority of Western Thrace as Turkish. Finally, the conference called for the establishment of a policy framework or instrument to protect minority rights at the EU level. The European Union prides itself on its core values of respect for human rights and promotion of democracy, but does not do serious efforts to stop violations; it is untenable to continue to allow Greece, a Member State since 1981, to violate the rights of its minorities.

Articles in the European press:
EurActiv
Politico