A new book on national minorities in Europe ranks both France and Greece as having worse national minority rights than Russia.
The book, written by Christoph Pan and Beate Sibylle Pfeil, was launched at the joint Sud Tirol, Trentino, and Tyrol office in Brussels. The authors compiled the ranking by comparing the performance of European states in their implementation of national minority rights, based on data drawn from the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM).
The bottom four are France, Belarus, Greece and Turkey. Top of the table came Belgium and Finland, followed by Denmark, Hungary and Spain.
The study follows one in 2001 where the legal status of minorities in 36 European states gave the following results: half of the states (18) had fulfilled their commitments to the extent of 50%-85%, fifteen states (42%) had implemented 30%-50% of the measures required, whereas only three states, Belarus, Greece and Turkey gave much lower figures.
The study shows that by 2006 two thirds of states (25) had fulfilled their commitments to the extent of 50% - 85%, and the number of states fulfilling 30-50% of commitments in terms of quality of minority protection dropped from fifteen to eight, but that the number of states still far behind remained unchanged.
At the lower and critical levels Russia, Ukraine, France, Belarus and Greece had not progressed at all, with the authors describing these states as "nearly completely resistant to any innovation in this field."
The UK also came under criticism for its wide interpretation of the FCNM (a Convention that aims to protect historic, indigenous national minorities), because the UK includes most minorities, both national and ethnic, in its ratification, but continues to exclude the Cornish. For the authors such an example shows that, for the FCNM to work properly, it is essential for the Council of Europe to uphold its definition of what constitutes a national minority when dealing with member states.
Eurolang
Macedonians in Greece are reporting that they are forbidden to express their nationality or to speak their language, either by "official" or by "unofficial" methods. They live in fear that something might happen to them, as 2nd class citizens in their own country, even worse, a European Union member. There is a systematic ethnic cleansing going on in Aegean Macedonia for about one century. Even today, thousands of Macedonian refugees are not permitted to return to their homes, and their land has been taken from them.
The book, written by Christoph Pan and Beate Sibylle Pfeil, was launched at the joint Sud Tirol, Trentino, and Tyrol office in Brussels. The authors compiled the ranking by comparing the performance of European states in their implementation of national minority rights, based on data drawn from the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM).
The bottom four are France, Belarus, Greece and Turkey. Top of the table came Belgium and Finland, followed by Denmark, Hungary and Spain.
The study follows one in 2001 where the legal status of minorities in 36 European states gave the following results: half of the states (18) had fulfilled their commitments to the extent of 50%-85%, fifteen states (42%) had implemented 30%-50% of the measures required, whereas only three states, Belarus, Greece and Turkey gave much lower figures.
The study shows that by 2006 two thirds of states (25) had fulfilled their commitments to the extent of 50% - 85%, and the number of states fulfilling 30-50% of commitments in terms of quality of minority protection dropped from fifteen to eight, but that the number of states still far behind remained unchanged.
At the lower and critical levels Russia, Ukraine, France, Belarus and Greece had not progressed at all, with the authors describing these states as "nearly completely resistant to any innovation in this field."
The UK also came under criticism for its wide interpretation of the FCNM (a Convention that aims to protect historic, indigenous national minorities), because the UK includes most minorities, both national and ethnic, in its ratification, but continues to exclude the Cornish. For the authors such an example shows that, for the FCNM to work properly, it is essential for the Council of Europe to uphold its definition of what constitutes a national minority when dealing with member states.
Eurolang
Macedonians in Greece are reporting that they are forbidden to express their nationality or to speak their language, either by "official" or by "unofficial" methods. They live in fear that something might happen to them, as 2nd class citizens in their own country, even worse, a European Union member. There is a systematic ethnic cleansing going on in Aegean Macedonia for about one century. Even today, thousands of Macedonian refugees are not permitted to return to their homes, and their land has been taken from them.
8 comments:
SKOPJE (AP) – Four were injured and nine others detained following clashes between police and supporters of an ethnic Albanian minority party angry over proposed electoral reforms, authorities in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) said yesterday.
The four injured were hospitalized following the clashes in the capital Skopje. The nine detained are supporters of the ethnic Albanian DUI party, who were charged with assault and carrying unlicensed guns.
“They will be charged with carrying guns without a license,” police spokesman Ivo Kotevski told the AP yesterday. “Five of them will also be charged with assaulting a police officer.” Police detained protesters and seized firearms when supporters of the minority Democratic Union for Integration tried to block streets around the country’s parliament building late on Tuesday.
The violence erupted after lawmakers from the DUI and PDP, a rival Albanian minority party, came to blows inside parliament during a heated debate over the proposed reforms. Four bodyguards were detained during that incident. Two assault rifles and four handguns were also seized from a car outside the building.
The EU condemned the violence, saying it undermines FYROM’s recent progress. “Our main message is to say that we expect dialogue in the parliament will be conducted in a peaceful and constructive manner,” EU spokeswoman Krisztina Nagy said yesterday.
She declined to speculate on how this could affect FYROM’s EU membership hopes, saying that “this shameful act clearly undermines the recent progress achieved by the country.” The country is officially an EU member candidate as well as a NATO hopeful, but has not yet opened negotiations with Brussels.
The reform bill would allocate an extra 10 seats in parliament to members of non-Albanian ethnic minorities – including Turks, Serbs, Vlachs, Bosniaks and Roma – and three to representatives of the FYROM diaspora, raising the total number of deputies to 133.
Have a nice day Mr Goodbytes
KOSTAS
TO ALL GREEKS COMPATRIOTS WHO VISIT THIS PAGE:
PLEASE
DO NOT VISIT SKOPJE AND
DO NOT BUY SKOPJEAN PRODUCTS!!!!!!
THANK YOU
KOSTAS
BTW, Kostas, I would never think that way about Greeks, the way you think about Macedonians. Although it is not clearly visible, this blog is about our right to name our country without interference, NOT against Greece or Greek people.
But, if you wish, it is your right to satanize Macedonians or anybody else, especially on your own site, if you have one. I don't plan to moderate you here, because it shows exactly the true nature of our dispute and it speaks more about you than me.
And in the future, I can post here photos of buses with Greek tourists visiting Ohrid, or maybe even me shaking hands with them, so that you will see that I like all people the same. :-)
I REPEAT to all greek compatriots who are visting this site
This man (Mr Goodbytes) is insulting our country GREECE all the time.
He says,he can post here photos of buses with Greek tourists visiting Ohrid, or maybe even his shaking hands with them, so that he likes all people the same.
So I repeat to all Greeks if they like they country.
OUR COUNTRY AND NATION is under attack.
WHY COMPATRIOTS ARE U VISITING SKOPJE?
Please DONT GIVE ONE (1) EURO to SKOPJEANS.
THANK YOU
KONSTANTINOS IN ATHENS
You draw a strange and irrational conclusion, Kostas, and I feel sorry for you. I don't see why you think I am insulting or attacking you - I really meant what I said that I like all people in the world, including the Greeks. I have friends and colleagues from Greece and we respect each other as friends.
The last thing I have in mind is to insult anyone because of his ethnic origin, this is simply not relevant to me at all, except in a cultural sense. Among others, I respect and appreciate your history, art, culture, music, and the beauties of your country. If you bothered to find out more about Macedonia (or even your own Macedonian minority in Aegean Macedonia), you would find that we have many things in common, which makes sense, since we are neighbors.
The sole purpose of this blog is to make sure everyone leaves Macedonians alone, to be what we want to be, and to finally live in peace with our neighbors. We have centuries of bad history and I want to see that behind us, once and for all. We are reaching our hand towards our neighbors and friends, but nobody seems to care, and we keep hearing the same language of hate.
Anyway, this way or another, we will prevail in our struggle. Now that we finally have our own independent state, things are going to change from now on, and in our favor. Start getting used to that and begin to communicate with us as equal - otherwise, your arrogance might isolate you.
Mr Goodbytes hallo,
first of all you have to feel sorry for yourself instead of making comments about myself.
The following are headers from your blog:
1) the veto threat is a transparent bluff
2) national minority rights: France and Greece worse than Russia
3) This is not a joke (Grosomanidou case)
Obviously it is seen by the above that you "LOVE" Greece a lot.
Greek compatriots, let me inform you for the following:
a) Macedonian minority in Greece ia a propaganda by Skopjeans, which refer to "BILINGUAL" Greek Communists who fought in greek civil war (in 40's) that supported the Greek Communist Party's intension to draw apart North Greece and create the Macedonian State as Tito wanted
b) Skopjean's intention is not to live in peace with neighbors but to
--- cheat greek history saying that they are the only descentants of ancient Macedonians
--- propagandize that ancient Macedonians were not Greeks
--- impose a technical language of Bulgarian origine as pure Macedonian, and saying that was the language Ancient Macedonians were speaking
--- be recognised as Republic of Macedonia, the only Macedonia.
If they accomplish their targets, of course with GREECE's signature, the next thing they'll do is to take Greece to INTERNATIONAL COURT to fordid us of using the word MACEDONIA in north Greeece and in places such as SALONICA, FLORINA, KASTORIA, KAVALA etc. Greek Government will be obliged to CHANGE the word Macedonia in north Greece.
Then dear 3.000.000 Greek Macedonians which would be your origin if you ll be obliged NOT to use the word MACEDONIAN??????
How should you call yourselves???
Don't you see the danger you run through???
Final, Greek Compatriots (Macedonias, Thessalians, Cretans etc) why do you have this man (Goodbytes) as a friend???
If a friend of Mr Goodbytes read this messsage, please answer to me. I should be very obliged.
Thank you
Konstantinos in Athens
Kostas, you fear too much, nobody is after you. And I bet you have a proof of all your claims, of what we will do in the future? :-)
It would be a shame to rename Aegean Macedonia to anything else, because that is Macedonia, too.
I think you should calm down, you are seeing hostility where there isn't one. If you continue like this, I'll start to worry for your health (see the blog's subtitle). :-)
After all, this is a debate of opinions, so fight the opinion, not the people, OK?
To all Greek compatriots.
If u read this blog and know this man (Goodbytes-he is a software engineer)
Please let me know who is.
Thank you
Konstantinos in Athens
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