1 million signatures campaign for diversity in Europe has reached its goal and resulted in success

Halit Habip Oğlu: “Due to the fear caused as a result of suppression and intimidation policies of the Greek state on national minorities in the country, signatures for supporting the ‘Minority SafePack Initiative’ remained at a limited number in Greece.”

The 1 million signatures campaign launched by the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), of which the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) is a full member, for the European Citizens Initiative with the name “Minority SafePack (MSPI)” has reached its goal. Until the official deadline of the campaign on 3 April 2018 at 23.59 o’clock, European-wide 1,215,789 signatures have been collected, and in fact the goal of 1 million signatures has been exceeded.

According to the statement provided by FUEN, the MPSI has collected 1,215,789 signatures, 771,089 of which have been received online and 444,790 on paper. The national threshold has been reached in eleven countries, and hence the condition stipulated by the European Commission (EC) that a minimum number of statements of support must be gathered in at least 7 EU member states has been also fulfilled. The countries, where the national threshold has been reached, are as follows: Romania (303,695), Slovakia (57,890), Hungary (569,813), Latvia (8,252), Croatia (18,884), Spain (53,772), Denmark (12,194), Bulgaria (24,691), Lithuania (20,284), Slovenia (6,895) and Italy (60,545). And in Greece, 5,166 statements of support were not sufficient to reach the national threshold of 15,750 set by the EC.

During April 2018, FUEN will hand over the statements of support it has collected to the competent national authorities of the states where the national threshold has been reached. Within three months, the said countries are required to validate the statements of support, after which the certificates issued by them will be handed over to the EC. The EC will then have another three months to organize a public debate on the subject matter in the European Parliament and to express its view on the future of the MSPI.

“Having collected 1,215,789 statements of support exceeding the goal of 1 million in the campaign for the ‘Minority SafePack Initiative’ is an important gain for national and linguistic minorities living in Europe. Hereby, thanks to the initiative, a historical step has been taken to discuss the protection of national minorities and promoting linguistic and cultural diversity at European level and to have these become one of the general policy areas of the European Union which is binding for the member states. It is rather sad that the number of signatures received to support the initiative in our country Greece has not reached the national threshold and remained at a limited number. The major reason for this situation is the fear among national minority members caused as a result of the suppression and intimidation policies of the Greek state on national minorities living within the Greek borders. And with the fear of suppression by the Greek state, the persons belonging to the Turkish community in Western Thrace which has been supporting the initiative with all its institutions and organizations since its beginning abstained from signing up to it”, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).

The FUEN press release on the successful “Minority SafePack Initiative” is available at: https://www.fuen.org/news/single/article/fuens-successful-minority-safepack-initiative-created-a-european-movement-for-minority-rights/