30.04.2010National Coincil for Cooperation on Ethnic and Demographic Issues hold its first meeting in 2010
The first for the current 2010 year meeting of the National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and Demographic Issues was held on April 29 in the building of the Council of Ministers. Representatives of institutions related to ethnic issues and NGOs took part in the session. The meeting was chaired by the Deputy chairman Georgi Krastev.
Participants were acknowledged with the NCCEDI 2009 activities report, information about the epidemic of measles, the state of the problem "Block 20" in
Without any intrigues passed the choice of Deputy chairman from the quota of non-governmental organizations: Thoma Kyurkchiev from the “Center for Aromanian language and culture”, was elected with 13 votes convincingly against 4 for the other candidate - Assen Kolev from Inforoma - Asenovgrad.
The meeting held could be defined as a slack after the formation of the Council in 2006. It was not a surprise that political figures did not attend the session - only Deputy Minister Raykov (MFA), Deputy Minister Konstantinova (MH) and National Coordinator of the Decade of Roma Inclusion Milen Milanov attended the meeting, other deputy ministers sent experts. Till the last moment it was expected that the Chairman of NCCEDI Tsvetanov shall appear, but at the end his welcoming nota were read by Georgi Krastev.
Participants seemed very skeptical about the existence of supporting will to assure that the Council should actually work. Deyan Kolev said that in 2009 NCCEDI has met just one time, which is in violation of its Rules, setting that at least 4 meetings per year shall be conducted. "I hope from here on, that the institutions from the executive power will comply with the rules of NCCEDI adopted by Decree of the Council of Ministers - if we really want to have the Council," said Kolev.
