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INFORMATION BULLETIN, OCTOBER 2002, NUMBER 1

PRESS RELEASE

On 26 January 2002 a meeting was arranged in Thessaloniki by the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages for representatives of the linguistic minorities of Greece.

This historic meeting ended with a decision to create the Greek Committee of the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages, in other words a committee of the Greek Section of the EBLUL.

The membership of the Greek Committee of the EBLUL will be as follows:

Chairman: Athanasios Parisis (Member of the Centre for Macedonian Culture)
Deputy Chairman: Sotirios Bletsas (President of the Society for Aroumounic [Vlach] Culture)
Secretary: Ibram Onsunoglu (Member of the Turkish Minority Movement for Human and Minority Rights)
Member: Petros Kazias (Member of the Centre for Macedonian Culture)
Member: Georgios Tsamitros (Member of the Society for Aroumounic [Vlach] Culture)
Member: Abdulhalim Dede (Member of the Turkish Minority Movement for Human and Minority Rights)

The objectives of the Greek Committee of the EBLUL are clearly set out in its charter:

1. To preserve and promote the minority languages of Greece, specifically the Aroumounic (Vlach), Macedonian, Pomak and Turkish languages.
2. To seek the introduction of the minority languages into the Greek educational system, in those regions where these languages are spoken.
3. To endeavour to preserve and promote the cultures of the aforesaid minority languages.

The Greek Committee of the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages, in association with the Brussels Central Bureau, under the aegis and with the funding of the European Union, will endeavour to realise in tangible form its philosophy, namely the need to save and promote a peaceful and multicultural United Europe.