In Preveza today, Deputy Foreign Minister Terens Quick declared the opening of the proceedings of the 4th Regular Conference of the World Council of Epirotes Abroad (WCEA). "As Epirotes, you are a model for how overseas Hellenism should be organized and operate on the global and local level. You have a World Council that you organized and elected on your own –without the involvement of Greece or the Greek government– through self-organized councils that you have already elected on state and regional level. Leading the overseas Epirotes are young and successful people like the current president, Chrysostomos Dimou. This is the "new blood" that is being promoted –unselfishly, without trying to hang on to leadership positions indefinitely– by the Epirotes of the previous generation; patriots with maturity and wisdom. And how could things be different when you, the Epirotes, produced dozens of national benefactors who contributed to the creation and establishment of the modern Greek state following the Revolution of 1821. There were benefactors who forwent marriage, had no children, because Greece itself was their mother, spouse, sister and daughter." With these words, Deputy Foreign Minister Terens Quick opened the proceedings of the three-day 4th Regular Conference of the World Council of Epirotes Abroad, which is taking place this weekend in Preveza. In his address, Mr. Quick referred to the recommendations put forward by the president of the WCEA, Chrysostomos Dimou, who, in his introductory remarks, reiterated his firm positions on the conditions for the relaunching of the new, self-organized and self-funded World Council of Hellenes Abroad (SAE) and made clarifications –based on recent statements from the Secretary General of the Ministry of the Interior, Kostas Poulakis– on issues related to the vote for overseas Greeks. "I am pleased that you are pursuing the issue of the vote with the current government. It is an issue that, for at least three decades now – maybe four – could have been resolved by all of the previous governments, by all of the parties that governed previously and failed to resolve the issue. There was a law that could have been voted through by Parliament in 2008-2009, when the Minister of the Interior at the time, the current President of the Republic, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, submitted it, but was 'torpedoed' by certain parties the night before the vote. But no one mentions that. What matters now is that the issue of the vote is among the 17 'steps' before the Special Permanent Committee on Greeks Abroad of the Hellenic Parliament and has been slated for resolution by the Foreign Ministry during the Syriza-ANEL government," Mr. Quick noted, setting out his position on the issue in question.
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