Political talks in Berlin: 24th Annual meeting of the Working Group of German Minorities

More than 40 representatives from 20 organisations of German minorities meet for their annual meeting in Berlin. The Working Group of German Minorities, or AGDM, under the roof of FUEN has organised a challenging programme full of political talks and meetings.

“It will have been almost one year ago that we tried the same format of political discussions at the AGDM-meeting for the first time. This has been a year in which Europe and the world have profoundly changed and the developments have made us concerned and gave us much food for through. Minority policies and the policies on refugees are closely related”, said FUEN President Hans Heinrich Hansen, a German from Nordschleswig, in Denmark.

The annual meeting takes place within a framework of further activities in Berlin. Immediately afterwards the German Federal Commissioner for National Minorities has invited all for the conference “Identity, Homeland, Belief” that takes place in the new building of the Federal Ministry of the Interior. Just before and during the annual meeting the ifa-media days organised by the German Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations “ifa”, are taking place.

“It is a five-days around the clock package for the German minorities in Berlin”, says Eva Penzes, the coordinator of AGDM, who is responsible for organising the annual meeting.

The meeting is organised by the Berlin Office of FUEN for the first time. The programme was planned in close cooperation with the partners in Berlin.

“We are glad that since the latest meeting in November 2014, we have succeeded to establish the AGDM Coordinating Office in Berlin, with the support we needed. It is important that the minorities are present in Berlin under the European roof of FUEN”, says Koloman Brenner, the chair of the Working Group. “I thank German Federal Government Commissioner Hartmut Koschyk and FUEN for their tireless commitment during the past year.”

The annual meeting is supported by a grant from the German Federal Ministry of the Interior.

Programme Annual Meeting AGDM (German)