MINELRES: Rainbow at the 25th Anniversary of European Free Alliance
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Fri Jun 6 16:00:44 2008
Original sender: Rainbow <[email protected]>
POLITICAL PARTY OF THE MACEDONIAN MINORITY IN GREECE
Member of the European Free Alliance - European Political Party (EFA-
EPP)
Member of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN)
ST. DRAGOUMI 11 TK. 53100 P.O 51 TEL/FAX 0030 23850 46548
http://www.florina.org
E-mail: [email protected]
Press Release
FLORINA/LERIN 15.05.2006
EFA - Rainbow's participated in the 25th Anniversary of European Free
Alliance - European Political Party.
A delegation of the European Free Alliance - Rainbow (Rainbow) visited
Brussels from 10-13 May 2006 to participate in the General Assembly of
the European Free Alliance - European Political Party (EFA-EPP) in which
Rainbow has been a full member since 2000.
EFA (European Free Alliance) as a coalition of parties which fights for
the rights of stateless nations, minorities and peoples of the regions
of Europe celebrated its 25 th anniversary on 11 May 2006 in the central
chamber of the European Parliament in the presence of other political
groups, MEPs and representatives of EU institutions.
Rainbow was given an opportunity to address the gathering during which
activists of the party displayed two large banners which read:
ABOLISH THE GREEK "APARTHEID" NOW
COPENHAGEN CRITERIA ALSO APPLY FOR "OLD" EU MEMBERS
The above slogans referred to the discriminatory policies of the Greece
against its Macedonian minority as well as to the policy of double
standards of the EU in relation to membership criteria for new member
states and the actual situation in "old" member states.
The audience of 500 guests were impressed by Rainbow's innovative
protest as it is not very often that such demonstrations are held in the
central chamber of the European Parliament. Following the conclusion of
the anniversary celebration, many of the 500 participants approached the
delegation of Rainbow to seek further information on the situation of
the Macedonian minority and other minorities in Greece.
In the official agenda of the meeting, new membership applications were
discussed. After many months of lobbying on the part of Rainbow, OMO
PIRIN, a political party of the Macedonian minority of Bulgaria was
unanimously awarded observer status in the EFA-EPP.
A major discussion point of the meeting was the current climate of
scepticism for further European integration, the future enlargement of
the EU and the perspective of EFA-EPP in the political arena of the EU.
It should be noted that at the insistence of Rainbow and with the
support of EFA-EFA the Macedonian language was included in the work of
the meeting together with the other working languages. The speeches of
Rainbow at the session were made in Macedonian and were simultaneously
translated into the other working languages. This will now become common
practice at future EFA-EPP gatherings in the European Parliament.
The Press Office of
Rainbow
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