The online conference "Minority Protection and Ethnic Group Rights in Central and Central Eastern Europe", organised by the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) and the Cultural Foundation of German Expellees for Science and Research (Kulturstiftung der deutschen Vertriebenen für WIsssenschaft und Forschung) aims to provide an overall picture of minority protection and ethnic group rights in selected states – from the perspective of science and politics, theory and practice.

The cooperation between the largest umbrella organisation of autochthonous national minorities in Europe, the FUEN, and the Cultural Foundation of the German Expellees meets the demand to organise a symposium, where numerous German and European representatives from science and politics as well as from the ranks of national minorities and ethnic groups can exchange ideas. The expert conference is intended to contribute to gaining an overview of the extent to which the existing agreements of the Council of Europe on the one hand and possible new legal protection elements within the framework of the EU on the other hand can contribute to improving the level of minority protection in the European context.

The launch conference last October provided an overall picture of minority protection and ethnic group rights in Germany, Poland, Romania and Slovenia. This year, the countries Austria-Italy-Czech Republic; Slovakia-Hungary-Croatia and Estonia-Ukraine-Bulgaria will be dealt with in three separate online conference days.

The conference on the minority protection in the countries Estonia, Ukraine and Bulgaria will be streamed online on 29 April 2021 from 15:00-17:30 CET