The 21st meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission (IGC) on Ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan on April 9 in Berlin discussed the issues of supporting ethnic Germans, strengthening cultural and humanitarian cooperation between Kazakhstan and Germany.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Roman Vassilenko and Germany’s Federal Government Commissioner for Matters Related to Ethnic German Resettlers and National Minorities, Member of the Bundestag Natalie Pawlik co-chaired the meeting, which addressed cooperation in education, culture, science, youth policies, the studying of German language, archival work, facilitating business contacts and liberalization of the visa regime, focusing on implementation of the joint projects to support the national identity of Germans in Kazakhstan.
The participants welcomed the opening of the Centre for German Language and Culture at the Eurasian National University and the branch of the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences at the Almaty University of Power Engineering and Telecommunications in 2024, noting also the important contribution of the Kazakh-German Center in Astana, the Kazakh-German University in Almaty, the Kazakh-German Institute of Sustainable Engineering in Aktau, the National Academic German Drama Theatre and other institutions in strengthening the bilateral interaction.
“Just as the Kazakh land has traditionally connected the West and the East, so the ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan and former citizens of our country in Germany have today created a ‘living bridge’ between Kazakhstan and Germany and are key to perspective development of Kazakh-German relations,” said Vassilenko.
He noted that ensuring favorable conditions for coexistence of various people in a common socio-cultural space remains one of the key objectives of the Government of Kazakhstan.
Natalie Pawlik confirmed the German Government’s plans to continue providing assistance to ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan.
According to statistics, there are 226,000 ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan and around one million German resettlers from Kazakhstan in Germany.
