Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

We would like to invite you to attend our symposium "Europe's Ethnic Groups, Minorities, Regions - Explosive or Building-Blocks?" which will take place October 27-29 in Brno/Brünn(Czech Republic). The International Institute for Nationality Rights and Regionalism / INTEREG has organized this symposium in cooperation with the Centre International de Formation Europeénne / CIFE, the Federalist Union of European Ethnic Groups / FUEV, the International Conference on Minorities in the Europe of Tomorrow / ISCOMET and the Society for Threatened Peoples.

The goals of the symposium are presented in the enclosed outline. We would be honored if you would accept our invitation. Please advise us as soon as possilble.

Thursday, October 27

7:00 p.m. Opening by the chairman of the organizers 8:30 p.m. Dinner

Friday. October 28

9:00 a.m. Beginning of the presentations; 1:00 p.m. Lunch; 7:00 p.m. Dinner

Models, Problems, Conflicts:

Seven analytical surveys and analyses of the European macroregions in conjunction with one selected problem in each region:

Western Europe: Prof.Dr. Anthony Alcock;

The Basques: Prof. Dr. Joseba Agirreazkuenaga

Central Europe: Dr. Rudolf Hilf;

Hungary: Vice-President János Báthory

Southern Europe: Prof. Dr. Aureli Argemi;

South Tyrol: Prof. Dr. Christoph Pan

Southeastern Europe: Prof. Dr. Silvo Devetak

Northern Europe: Dr. Lauri Hannikainen

Aaland Islands: Prof. Dr. Tore Modeen

Northeastern Europe: Prof. Dr. Frank Boldt;

Russia and the Baltic States: Prof. Dr. Guntis Stamers

Eastern Europe: The Problem of the Russian Minorities outside Russia and of non-Russian minorities inside Russia: Prof. Dr. Nikolai Kolikow

Saturday, October 29

9:00 a.m. Beginning of the presentations; 1:00 p.m. Lunch; 7 :00 p.m. Dinner

Elements for Potential De-Escalation:

The current situation in the international arena: Prof. Dr. Felix Ermacora

Selected examples for the current situation on the national level: Prof. Dr. Dieter Blumenwitz

Regionalism and federalism as means for defusing conflict: Prof. Dr. Otto Kimminich

The FUEV draft convention: Prof. Dr. Christoph Pan

Presentation of the INTEREG Charta Gentium et Regionum: Prof. Dr. Fried Esterbauer

Sunday, October 30

9:00 a.m. Beginning of the presentations; 1:00 p.m. Lunch; End of the symposium

Follow-up activities - Chair: Dr. Eva Maria Barki

Editing of the INTEREG charter - Chair: Michael Palmer, former General Director of the European Parliament

General session

Presentation of six papers on special topics

Genocide in history: open

Genocide in conjunction with the collapse of the communist system in Europe: Tilman Zülch

A proposal for peace in Central Europe: Dr. Jaroslav Sabata

Bosnia as a crossroads in European-Islamic relations: Crown Prince Hassan bin Talal (possibly as the keynote-speech)

The Baltic region: bridge or zone of conflict between Europe and Russia: Prof. Dr. Frank Boldt

The instrument of border-transcending regionalism: Dr. Yvo Peeters

Adoption of the INTEREG charter

Accommodations and meals will be provided at no cost to the participants

Travel expenses will be reimbursed upon application to the symposium organizers on the basis of economical fares. Reimbursement for airfare can only be made by previous arrangement with INTEREG

Languages of the symposium English, Czech, German

Intereg, München

Postfach 340161; 80098 München; Tel. 089-2721498; Fax 089- 2716475

Gez. Franz Olbert, Generalsekretär Gez. Dr. Rudolf Hilf, f. d. Präsidium

Europe is going through a radical change. Forty years of East-West confrontation between two military pacts have generated two relatively simple alternatives:

> In the West: The establishment of military security on the basis of an Atlantic alliance and the combined efforts of the European states to overcome historical enmities and to coordinate national interests in a Europe no longer capable of maintaining its position except as a political and economic community.

> In the East: A military alliance organized and led by a single center in tandem with a similarly centralized, bureaucratized and largely isolated economy.

In the past decade these constants have lost their stability. In the East the ideological, economic and military system has disintegrated. In the West the collapse ofthe other side has called the raison d'étre of the military alliance into question. At the same time, the states ofthe former Soviet glacis clamor for entry into the European community of nations, thereby rekindling and exacerbating the old conflict between the priorities of whether to first intensify or to expand the European Union. Simultaneously, a third problem arises: With the disappearance of the military threat from the East, the European impulse towards unity has weakened, raising the possibility of backsliding into the narrow politics of national interests. In the East, the vacuum created by the collapse of the Soviet empire is being filled by a crass and increasingly chaotic nationalism, even tribalism, seeking solutions - including border changes - by force of arms and by means of genocide.

What is taking place in the former Yugoslavia is therefore not a one-time aberration, but rather a portent ofthings to come. Early in the decade the London Institute for Strategic Studies had already pointed out that some 150 ethnic conflicts could be identified in the East, 50 of which had already reached the stage of armed conflicts. In his book Minorities at Risk. A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts (published in Washington in 1993) Ted Robert Gurr assessed a global conflict potential among 233 politicized groups in 1990. This clearly implies that a tidal wave of ethnic conflict will sweep through the remainder ofthis decade, this century, this millennium. So far, no effective means of containment have been discovered.

It is true that the efforts to defuse such conflicts through the development of new international law have made progress in recent years, for example as a result of the United Nations Declaration on the rights of persons belonging to national, ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities of 18.12.1992, the CSCE documents of Vienna (1989), Copenhagen and Paris (1990), Geneva and Moscow (1991), Prague, Helsinki and Stockholm (1992), the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (1992) of the Council of Europe, as well as the Draft Additional Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights on the rights ofpersons belonging to national minorities (1993) and through various efforts on the part of the European Community / European Union since 1993.

Nevertheless, these are all more or less unconnected building blocks, whereas only solid, common European foundations can lend stability in the face of the coming crises. It is indicative of the general state of affairs that, despite two years of preparation, the 1993 Vienna Summit of the Heads of State of the members of the Council of Europe has been incapable of agreeing on a definition of the term "minority".

IN VIEW OF THIS SITUATION THE ORGANIZERS LISTED IN THE INVITATION, TOGETHER WITH RECOGNIZED EXPERTS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW AND LEADING REPRESENTATIVES OF THOSE MOST AFFECTED, NAMELY OF THE ETHNIC GROUPS AND MINORITIES OF ALL OF EUROPE, EXTEND THE INVITATION TO ATTEND A THREE DAY SYMPOSIUM IN BRNO/BRÜNN, THE HISTORIC CAPITAL OF MORAVIA IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC. ANALYSES OF THE PRESENT SITUATION IN WESTERN, CENTRAL, NORTHERN, SOUTHERN, NORTHEASTERN AND SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE WILL BE PRESENTED, AFTER WHICH POTENTIAL MEANS OF DEFUSING CONFLICTS BY MEANS OF NEW LEGAL INSTRUMENTS ARE TO BE EXAMINED. A CHARTER WILL BE DRAFTED. A WORHING GROUP IS TO BE CREATED TO CARRY THROUGH A FOLLOW-UP PROGRAM FOR THE COORDINATION OF MINORITY NGO'S AND THE FUTURE COOPERATION BETWEEN INTEREG AND OTHER (INTERNATIONAL, GOVERNMENTAL AND NONGOVERNMENTAL) ORGANIZATIONS.