International seminar on integration problems opens in Tallinn

The international seminar "National Minorities In the Estonian Society - Equal Treatment and Integration" opened in the conference hall of the Estonian foreign ministry on Thursday.

RIA Novosti reports that according to the organisers of the seminar its main goal is "to allow the country's public to become acquainted with the activity of the Estonian state, and national minorities' organizations in the sphere of integration within the framework of corresponding documents of the Council of Europe and the UN." The state programme "Integration In Estonian Society in 2000-2007" has been worked out in the republic, in which integration is regarded as "bilateral process in three fields - language-communication, political-legal and social-economic." Taking part in the conference are Estonian ministers of education and population, Mailis Rand and Eldar Efendiyev, as well as chairman of the European Committee for Control over the Fulfilment of the Convention on the Protection of National Minorities Reiner Hofmann, Estonian and foreign experts, representatives of public organizations and national minorities.