European Center for Minority Issues

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The headquarters of the ECMI in the Kompagnietor

The European Center for Minority Issues (ECMI European Center for Minority Issues ) in Flensburg is a research and information center on minorities . The center is a legal foundation under civil law , donors are the state of Schleswig-Holstein , the Federal Republic of Germany and the Kingdom of Denmark .

organization

The ECMI was founded in 1996 by the governments of Denmark, Germany and Schleswig-Holstein. The foundation is an impartial and interdisciplinary institution. While the running costs of the center are funded by the three governments, it is also seeking project-related funding to finance its rapidly growing tasks. The ECMI employs a small team of scientific experts who are supported by a number of visiting scientists and who can draw on an extensive network of external experts. The center also maintains active relationships with other institutions with similar fields of activity and develops projects with them. The ECMI has a nine-member executive committee made up of three members from Denmark, three from Germany and one representative each from the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the European Union. The working language of the ECMI is English .

The ECMI is based in the historic Kompagnietor in the old town of Flensburg. Meetings and conferences are also organized here. In the building ECMI projects are carried out and their publication prepared.

purpose

The organization carries out practical research, provides information and documentation and advises on minority issues in Europe. It works with various governments and international organizations, as well as with non-dominant groups in Europe . The center also supports the academic research of others, the media, and the general public by providing information and analysis. The timely observation and investigation of potential conflicts in all regions of Europe - East and West - is a focus of the activities of the center, the aim of which is to help resolve ethnic tensions. Overall, it has three central tasks:

  1. Assessment and further development of universal, regional, bilateral and national standards: They can help to consolidate democratic forms of government based on ethnic diversity and human rights. In this context, the ECMI is particularly interested in the evolving convergence of standards between the EU member states and the applicant states .
  2. Implementation of such standards and the investigation of the effectiveness of the corresponding implementation mechanisms: The ECMI also advises governments and minority groups and works with them to develop options for implementing minority regulations.
  3. Constructive conflict management: The ECMI is currently expanding its capacity to support international peace efforts and peacekeeping measures by increasingly dealing with conflicts of an ethnopolitical dimension in Greater Europe. The ECMI also has contacts with various regions of tension in Europe and prompts the local protagonists to engage in dialogue, either in the respective region or at a neutral location. The center benefits from the exemplary development of minority issues in the German-Danish border area.

See also

Web links

Commons : European Center for Minority Issues  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Flensburger Tageblatt : 1284 to 2009: Die Stadtchronik , January 1, 2009; Retrieved on: June 28, 2014