- Press releases
On the 16th November 2017, the International Day for Tolerance, we have opened a new “Minority Commissioner’s Office” in Bijeljina, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
We are happy to announce that our work with minorities in Western Balkans is showing some very concrete results. On this year’s International Day for Tolerance, several stakeholders of our common project Minorities in Western Balkans* have gathered in the city of Bijeljina to formally open the »Minority Commissioner's Office«. The opening of the office is the result of our common path over the last one and a half years, where the Project partners FUEN, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) and the State Chancellery of Schleswig-Holstein exchanged best practices in minority protection with our partners from the Western Balkans.
The Minority Commissioner's Office provides an office for national minorities at the local level, based on the experience of the state of Schleswig-Holstein and it is the first of such kind in the region of Western Balkans. In Bijeljina the largest minority are the Roma, followed by the Slovak minority.
At the opening ceremony the Mayor of the city of Bijeljina Mr. Mićo Mićić stressed out the importance of the project: "We as municipality believe that only a strong dialogue and an active minority politics, with the civil society engaged, will lead to the development of our society. I am a strong supporter of the Minority Commissioner’s Office and wish all the best to our future comon project.”
FUEN President Loránt Vincze congratulated all the partners involved in this project, stating that the opening of the Minority Commissioner’s Office in Bijeljina shows how exchange between different stakeholders that work with minorities can show concrete results in a very short period of time.
“With this position and institution you invest in the future and please be aware of the fact that this position will not mean that all problems are solved. There is no perfect model of democracy or minority rights: freedom, improvements, new goals and commitments are always needed. Constant investment and readiness is needed to answer the upcoming challenges, to answer the legitimate requests of communities” – said the President of FUEN.
Loránt Vincze considers the “Minorities in Western Balkans” project a success, as “it went straight ahead with its goals and we were able to achieve the establishment of an institution for the future. It is a strong commitment for democracy, cooperation, reconciliation, openness.”
At the opening ceremony, the FUEN also welcomed its newest member organisation, The Association of Citizens for Promotion of Roma Education Otaharin from Bijeljina. Otaharin applied for membership in the umbrella organisation of the European nationalities at FUEN’s congress in Cluj-Kolozsvár-Klausenburg, and the membership certificate was presented to them in their hometown, followed by the visit at their premises.
All stakeholders involved also signed a Memorandum of Understanding and agreed to continue a strong cooperation in the field of minority issues also in the future.
More pictures here.
*The project "Minorities in Western Balkans" is an activity in the frame of “Bund-Länder Programmes”, assigned by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and partly financed by the State Chancellery of Schleswig-Holstein. After a successful first phase in 2016, the project continues in 2017. The BMZ project is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaftfür Internationale Zusammenarbeit(GIZ), the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), and the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI). In 2017 several subprojects were developed by our local partners with the support and experience from FUEN and ECMI. What makes this project special, is that we are striving for cooperation between the NGOs and the authorities of the Western Balkans partners.
