The autochthonous minorities in Germany are represented on various political committees and commissions at a federal level.

The basic conditions for the national minorities’ political participation at a federal level are in place. However, the Minority Council demands their expansion. Most Bundestag members are not familiar with minority concerns, which accordingly will not be taken into consideration for political decisions. Such concerns touch on many policy areas, including security policy, media policy, educational policy, refugee policy, economic policy, environmental policy, infrastructure and development policy and European policy.

The challenge facing us all is to find effective avenues of communication so that minority concerns flow even more readily into federal and state parliamentary decision-making processes and are taken into account there.

The head of the Minorities Secretariat is a member of the advisory board of the “Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency” (ADS). At European level, there is intensive cooperation with the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), the largest umbrella organization of autochthonous national minorities/ethnic groups in Europe, with the minority secretariat and the minority organizations represented and the spokespersons’ group.