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press release

FUEN – Congress of 2013 will take place in South Tyrol

The largest meeting of the autochthonous minorities in Europe – the annual FUEN-Congress – will take place in South Tyrol in 2013 and will deal with issues of autonomy in all its different forms.

“There is a growing interest among our member organisation to organise the FUEN-Congress. We thank all those who have applied”, said FUEN-president Hans Heinrich Hansen following the first meeting of the FUEN-presidium after the summer break, which took place in Munich.

The Congress of 2014 will take place in the German-Danish border region. “In 2014 there will be an important anniversary in European history; it will have been 150 years since the Battle of Dybbøl. I think it will be a good symbol and signal when the European minorities will commemorate this anniversary together in the German-Danish border region.”

Another topic at the presidium meeting was the pleasing report from the European Commission. The network for multilingualism, RML2future, established by FUEN together with a number of partners, which has worked successfully for three years, was given an excellent mark in the final evaluation by Brussels.

The follow-up project “ProML” already started and over its two-year duration it will implement a Europe-wide campaign to raise awareness for the advantages of multilingualism in Europe. During the Europeada 2012 in Lusatia, Germany, one could already see the unconventional way in which publicity is raised for the benefits of multilingualism.

“We will continue to deal with the central importance of language for the autochthonous minorities in Europe. We introduced the FUEN-Fundamental Right to Language at our congress in Moscow and will continue to work on this. These initiatives – which are being supported by the European Commission – will be further developed by us”, said Hans Heinrich Hansen.

The voluntary presidium also looked back at the two highlights of the first half-year: the Europeada 2012 and the FUEN-Congress, which for the first time in the 60 year history of FUEN took place in Moscow, Russia.

“We are very satisfied with these two major activities. We attracted lots of attention, especially with the great football tournament in Lusatia and also about the FUEN-Congress 2012 we only received positive feedback. Taking into account the limited personnel and financial resources of FUEN, this is a great result. Only the commitment of our member organisations, Domowina – the Lusatian Sorbs in Germany and IVDK – the Germans in Russia, made this possible, said the satisfied FUEN-president Hans Heinrich Hansen.