- Press releases
Two decades after the adoption of the Council of Europe legal instruments we must honestly admit that the two legal instruments have not yet achieved their initial aim to make possible for minorities to exercise their rights and enjoy the freedoms from the principles included in the Framework Convention – stated the president of the FUEN in Strasbourg, at the conference organised on the occasion of celebrating twenty years since the adoption of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
In his opinion it is regrettable that there still are so many states that have not signed or ratified the two instruments yet, and that not all the ones that did are doing everything to respect their commitments. As an example Loránt Vincze talked about his country, Romania, which not only delayed the presentation of the country reports on the implementation of the two instruments for several years, but strongly criticised the advisory committee for having an “unreasoned approach” in its assessment.
“It is problematic, to say the least, when the member states affirm that they have done all their homework regarding the subject, and that the issues of national minorities living on their territories are handled in an exemplary manner, while the representatives of the minorities in question claim the contrary. This means that the dialogue, cooperation and the willingness to make a step forward or to solve complaints are missing. This compromises the scope of the two legal instruments” – said the president of the FUEN.
“Speaking about minority rights as an extra human right is denying the very essence of minority protection. Minority rights are a part of human rights. It is not a privilege to have equal rights in the use of mother tongue in the public sphere or to have education in mother tongue, or to have tools to preserve our culture” – he added in an answer to the previous speech of the representative of the Romanian Foreign Ministry.
Loránt Vincze presented the FUEN’s proposals in this regard. In the opinion of the minority umbrella organisation, a conformity check of the provisions agreed by the states with the national legislation should be made, especially if there are contradictory provisions with the state level laws.
The FUEN believes the national minorities and the civil society should have an equal role with the representatives of the member states and the Secretariat in the preparation, monitoring and recommendation phase of implementing the legal instruments. They also find the system of triennial reporting not suitable for minority organisations, as pressing problems occur more often than three years. The umbrella organisation suggests that representatives of the minorities should be offered a way to forward their specific complaints and observations on the implementation of the instruments, and that they should also be able to have a response afterwards from the advisory committees.
FUEN is concerned that some member states suggest applying the Language Charter equals excessive bureaucracy and high costs. This approach should be rejected since preserving minority languages is neither a luxury nor a burden, but a right.
Finally, Loránt Vincze pointed out that although pluralism, inclusive societies, managing diversity, and accommodating new minorities are increasingly important challenges, we cannot expect the Language Charter or the Framework Convention to address these new, very different areas. Other tools and means should be developed for that purpose. “Traditional minorities still face assimilation pressure and demographic decline, which makes their situation special and this needs to be addressed not only as a matter of diversity, but also as a fundamental right” – he concluded in his intervention in Strasbourg speaking in the panel moderated by ECMI Director Tove Maloy with the participation of the ELEN, NPLD and Minority Rights Group International.
