Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe be declared as having lost Greek nationality...” The Turkish minority was forced to migrate. While the vast majority of migration wave was towards Turkey, some groups chose to migrate to other European countries, in particular to Germany. Today, the population of Western Thrace Turks in Germany amounts to 30,000. A considerable number of Western Thrace Turks live in other EU Member States, such as the Netherlands, England, Sweden, France, Belgium and Austria. The need to keep alive their cultural values and maintain solidarity in their host countries led the Western Thrace Turks to create collectively created associations. In Germany, the
Eastern Macedonia and Thrace prefectures, except for Thasos, which was part of the Kavala prefecture. Unlike the former prefectures, the regional units however have very limited administrative powers. Along with Central Macedonia, the region is supervised by the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace based at Thessaloniki. The political post of the Regional governor () was also created in the course of the Kallikratis reform and can be considered the successor of the former prefects. The current governor is Christos Metios, who succeeded in November 2016 deceased Giorgos Pavlidis (Nea Dimokratia). Pavlidis was elected in the 2014 regional election, beating the incumbent first-ever regional