The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) participated in the 8th Annual Meeting of the Education Working Group of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), held in the town of Eupen from 29 September to 2 October 2026 and hosted by the German minority living in Belgium.
Deniz Servantie from ABTTF took part in the meeting, which was attended by teachers, educators, researchers and academics from various European countries and was themed ‘‘Minority Issues in the Context of Vocational Education and Training: The Educational Situation of the German-speaking Community in Belgium – Special Focus: Artificial Intelligence in Minority Education’’.
During the conference, the educational situation of the German-speaking community in Belgium was presented; discussions centred on the continued strong presence of minority languages in vocational education and working life, successful models currently in place across different regions of Europe, and the opportunities and challenges posed by artificial intelligence in the context of minority education.
In its presentation titled “Vocational Education in Greece and the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace”, ABTTF highlighted the excessively centralised structure of the Greek education system, outlining the status of the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace within the education system and the structural problems they face in this field.
ABTTF emphasised that the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne guaranteed the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace the right to establish, manage, control and provide education in their mother tongue, Turkish, noting that this autonomous structure had been largely undermined over time as a result of various laws and administrative interventions.
ABTTF pointed out that, despite pre-school education being compulsory in Greece, there is not a single bilingual Turkish minority kindergarten in Western Thrace. It further stipulated that private and autonomous Turkish primary schools have been closed on the pretext of low number of pupils, and that the number of Turkish primary schools, which stood at 188 in 2011, has fallen to 76 in the 2026–2027 school year.
ABTTF pointed out that, although the Western Thrace Turks constitute the majority of the population in the prefecture of Rodopi and nearly half the population in the prefecture of Xanthi, there is only one Turkish lower secondary school and one Turkish upper secondary school in each of these regions.
Noting that there are 16 public vocational secondary schools (EPAL and P.EPAL) operating across the Western Thrace region, ABTTF explained that there is no vocational and technical school (Turkish vocational secondary school) belonging to the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace.
ABTTF emphasised that the aim of the policies implemented by Greece is to render the Turkish minority school system inoperative and to phase it out, whilst directing Turkish children towards public schools; it called on Greece to restore the educational autonomy of the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace, as guaranteed by the Treaty of Lausanne, and to respect their educational rights.
