Technological Educational Institute of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace an expansion, with the creation of four more departments, originally financed by the European Union through the Operational Programme for Education and Initial Vocational Training. The new departments are Industrial Informatics (1999) and Information Management (2000), located in Kavala; Landscape Architecture (2003), located in Drama; and Nursing (2007), located in Didymoteicho, in the eastern part of Evros regional unit of Thrace. Following the establishment of the Department of Landscape Architecture, a third school, the School of Agricultural Technology, was established in the Institute. In 2009, the Department of Oenology was founded and integrated into the Drama Branch. TEI of Kavala’s
Turks of Western Thrace was a measure to avert the possibility of the Greek region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace becoming a "second Cyprus" sometime in the future or of being ceded to Turkey on the basis of the ethnic origin of its Muslim inhabitants. Greek courts have also outlawed the use of the word 'Turkish' to describe the Turkish community. In 1988, the Greek Supreme Court affirmed a 1986 decision of the Court of Appeals of Thrace in which the "Union of Turkish Associations of Western Thrace" was ordered closed. The court held that the use of the word 'Turkish' referred to citizens