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The 29th Annual Meeting of AGDM took place online

For the Working Group of German Minorities, the year 2020 was marked by strengthened contact and interaction with member organizations from all over Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The health situation around the world and the spread of the Covid 19 pandemic brought many challenges for many associations and organizations of the German minority in the organization of their operations and activities.

This was reported at the 29th Annual Meeting of AGDM by more than 40 representatives of German minorities from 18 countries of Central Eastern Europe and Central Asia, who met digitally on December 17, 2020 for the regular AGDM Annual Meeting.

Although the year 2020 has overturned many plans and projects of the Working Group of German Minorities in FUEN, the reports of the AGDM Speaker Bernard Gaida and the AGDM Youth Coordinator Patrik Lompart were nevertheless very detailed and rich in activities and this in a year in which there had been almost no personal meetings and no travel and no gatherings had been possible. All this showed that the AGDM Coordination Office found enough strength and ideas to successfully transform its activities into digital formats during the past year, thus overcoming many challenges of the digital age.

The AGDM's annual meeting was also attended by the Federal Government Commissioner for Repatriate Issues and National Minorities, Prof. Dr. Bernd Fabritius. Commissioner Fabritius brought the best greetings of the Federal Government, especially of the Minister of the Interior, Horst Seehofer, and in his greeting he appreciated the continuous efforts of the associations of German minorities to cope with the challenges created by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the conduct of their activities and in their community life. Commissioner Fabritius emphasized how creatively AGDM and its member associations have carried out their projects in the current year, including through digital means, citing in particular the new online training courses offered by AGDM Youth as an example. It is very important, said the Federal Commissioner, that many projects have found a new digital form and have not just been cancelled.

On behalf of the FUEN Presidium, Vice President Vladimir Ham from Croatia welcomed the participants. An overview of the activities of FUEN in the past year as well as the plans for the projects of FUEN in the next year was presented by FUEN Secretary General Eva Penzes.

One of the decisions agreed upon by the large family of German minorities was that the upcoming 30th anniversary meeting of the Association of German Minorities will take place in 2021 in Northern Schleswig, hopefully in a face-to-face format. After that, the AGDM would like to designate its 30th anniversary of its founding in the presence of the AGDM family together with its member organization from Denmark, the Federation of German Northern Silesians, which celebrated the 100th anniversary of the formation of the German minority in 2020.

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