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Interview with István Pásztor, president of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (excerpt): 1 August 2015

“In mid-July, the Council of the AVH made a decision that it will establish the Bíró Károly Foundation. What does the Foundation do?

The decision is about that after 21 years of being in politics; the AVH is establishing its own foundation. We decided for this name because looking back to the 110 years of political history of this region, Károly Bíró’s personality is close to what we would like to represent. Thanks to him did Subotica become an Art Nouveau jewellery box, he was the last mayor before the end of the First World War and the Serbian occupational forces. Károly Bíró’s achievement has to be a measuring rod for the Foundation as well as the AVH. The city and the community are largely indebted to him: there is no street named after him in Subotica, he has no public sculpture, neither is he included in the memory culture. The Foundation aims at supporting professional workshops, roundtable-discussions, trainings and conferences that deal with all the possible perspectives of nurturing national identity, minority autonomy, EU-integration, political systems, constitutional change, economic and regional development and environmental issues. Through this Foundation we would like to strengthen our relationship network to the European People’s Party, because the other parties related to the EPP have similar foundations. The Foundation will receive money from projects, collaborating among other with the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the Robert Schuman Institute.”