- Communiqués de presse
20,284 statements of support collected by the Polish community in Lithuania for the Minority SafePack were handed over to the competent national authorities in Vilnius on Monday, April 30. After the event FUEN President Loránt Vincze held a press conference at the Seimas (the Lithuanian parliament) with the President of Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania, MEP Valdemar Tomaševski and MP Zbignev Jedinskij.
Historical minorities from the states that joined the European Union in the last wave had high hopes from the EU. „We believed that the EU is the right place to have protection and support for the national minorities, for our languages and cultures. But then we had to discover that the EU is more of an economic cooperation field, and many topics are regulated by Brussels, but language rights or cultural rights are not among them. This is regretful, because the EU’s motto is United in diversity” – said the President of the FUEN, talking about the beginnings of the Minority SafePack.
He reminded the audience of the success of the MSPI: 1,320,000 signatures were collected, and the national threshold was reached in 11 member states. The initiative passed the threshold in Baltic states (Lithuania and Latvia), in Eastern European countries (Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria), in the South (Italy and Spain) and in the North (Denmark). „This shows that our initiative is not a regional one, it is supported by different minority communities from all over Europe, and it became a movement which asks for support for minorities. We ask the EU to fulfill its motto, United in diversity. Minority languages and minority cultures should be included in this diversity” – Vincze pointed out. He thanked the Polish community for supporting the MSPI and making it possible to pass the threshold in Lithuania.
"As early as in 2000, Lithuania ratified the European Convention on Human Rights, which assumes, among other things, that new legal acts can not make the situation of national minorities worse. Meanwhile, in 2011, the amendment to the Education Act was adopted, which significantly worsened the conditions for learning in the native language. In 2010, the entire Act on National Minorities was abrogated, which is a drastic violation. That is why we, as Poles in Lithuania actively supported this initiative" – said Valdemar Tomaševski.
The MEP also talked about the good practices seen in other countries, and he pointed out that this initiative is also important because it asks the EU to encourage good practices where there are none.
