CIAO DATE: 04/04

The Role of the Interethnic Factor in the Development of the Kaliningrad Region

On 29-30 November 2002, the City of Kaliningrad hosted an international conference "The Role of the Interethnic Factor in the Development of the Kaliningrad Region" organized by the Regional Strategy Foundation and the regional office of Mediasojuz with the financial support of the Council of Europe, the Institute for Peace Research (Kiel, Germany) and the European Centre for Minority Issues, the principal organizer.

The participants of the conference included representatives of the Russian Government's Department for Regional Development, the Russian Foreign Ministry's Office in Kaliningrad, the regional administration, the regional Duma, the Kaliningrad Mayor's Office, the regional department of interior, the Kaliningrad Regional Department of the Federal Employment Service of the Russian Ministry of Labour, the Youth Parliamentarian Assembly, leaders of the national-cultural autonomies and associations of the Kaliningrad region, the Plenipotentiary for Human Rights in the Kaliningrad region, as well as representatives of non-governmental organizations and the mass media — altogether over 70 people.

Scholars from the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology and the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Grenoble University, the Schleswig-Holstein Peace Research Institute and Kaliningrad State University participated in the conference, allowing a wide spectrum of theoretical and practical issues in relation to national policy in Russia and in the region in the context of European transformations to be covered.

Experts from the Council of Europe and the European Centre for Minority Issues shared their knowledge of the European experience in working with migrants and in the application of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and other documents of the Council of Europe. Representatives of the regional and federal authorities presented the problems and perspectives of interethnic relations in the Kaliningrad region and of the legislative activity that affects the interests of nationalcultural autonomies and associations. Leaders of national-cultural autonomies and associations in the Kaliningrad region presented the activities of their respective organizations.

Full text (PDF format, 45 pages, 183 KB)