- Press releases
“The 1,320,000 statements of support collected for the Minority SafePack Initiative are of immense value. They mean real solidarity, strong legitimacy and a huge responsibility”, started the President of the FUEN in his opening speech at the organisation’s 63rd annual congress in Leeuwarden/Ljouwert, Netherlands on Thursday, June 21, 2018.
Loránt Vincze welcomed the guests and delegates to the capital of Fryslân and reminded everyone of the story of its name: in 1996 the States of Friesland decided that the official name of the province should follow the West Frisian spelling Fryslân rather than the Dutch one. In 2004, the Dutch government confirmed this resolution, putting in place a three-year plan to oversee the name change. “This, in itself, is a European success story about respecting a community and their language. All national minorities in Europe desire such a respect for the name of their region, and they wish that this name, in minority language, would be recognised and used in the official language as well”, he stated.
The President thanked the Council of the Frisian Movement, President Geart Benedictus and Pier Bergsma for bringing this congress to their home region.
Continuing his initial thoughts about the MSPI, he pointed out that “following the successful signatures campaign we have to return to our original thoughts. The Minority SafePack Initiative, apart from being a legal instrument, is also a proposal. It is the proposal made by the autochthonous national minorities to Europe. Today this initiative carries the clear, strong message of over one million European citizens: the issues of autochthonous national minorities cannot be swept under the rug.”
The president of the umbrella organisation of European minorities proposed a European majority-minority pact. “We know we make Europe richer, and we want the recognition and the support for that from the majority. We wish to create favourable conditions for linguistic and cultural diversity to thrive, to preserve and promote the identity of the minority communities, to stop their assimilation, to make them feel entirely at home on the territory where they have been living traditionally, to have a say in decisions that affect their lives, and to exercise autonomously their cultural, educational and linguistic rights.”
Loránt Vincze expressed his belief that it is not enough to hand in the validated signatures for the Minority SafePack Initiative and FUEN’s set of proposals to the European Commission, thus checking the last legal step of the process. “Before we do this, we need to have reassurances that our goal, protecting autochthonous minority rights via legal acts, is achievable and our request will be welcomed and we will not end up being the footnote in some policy paper”, he explained.
Therefore, the FUEN asks the European Commission to start a dialogue on the content of legal acts for minorities. If the European Commission supports them, they will make a step forward and submit the signed statements of support in autumn. Should they not get a positive response, they will have to wait for the upcoming European elections and the establishment of the new and hopefully more favourable European Commission and European Parliament, as the regulation for the Citizen’s Initiative allows the initiators to do.
On the future tasks of the organisation he spoke about the need for instruments of civil activism in order to reach out and better involve community members. This is why the FUEN plans on creating workshops and capacity building trainings for its member organisations.
Loránt Vincze pointed out that alongside the petition campaign FUEN had many other projects in the last year. They have continued several of their programmes that have proved to be successful in the past years, such as the Western Balkans Project, or the Minorities in the Caucasus. They have launched two new projects, the Minority Media Forum, gathering representatives of minority media, and the meeting of the minority and minority- friendly regions, entitled Deeply Rooted in the Regions, organised in the European Committee of the Regions. The labour of FUEN’s working groups has become more intense, and it established two new working groups: the Non Kin-state Minorities Working Group and the Education Working Group.
Speaking about the partnerships of FUEN, the President reminded everyone that while the Minority SafePack Initiative is the organisation’s largest project ever, they have to bear in mind that many member organisations come from states outside the EU. Therefore, the FUEN wishes to continue to work together with the institutions of the Council of Europe. They also intend to strengthen the good relationship nurtured over the past years with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and with the United Nations.
The FUEN President thanked for the partnership and support of Germany and Hungary, as well as the regions of Land Schleswig- Holstein, South Tyrol, Carinthia, Brandenburg and Saxony. He mentioned that the President of the Federal Republic of Germany Frank- Walter Steinmeier highlighted the recognition of the FUEN’s activity during his visit at the FUEN last October.
In his closing remarks Loránt Vincze talked about the increasingly pressing debate on the future of the EU. “The upcoming changes are opportunities for us, minorities of Europe, and we have our own vision, our own proposals in this debate. There is an internal debate within the EU about the rule of law, the obligation of the member states to observe the political criteria they fulfilled in the pre-accession period. Make no mistake: the protection of national minorities was among those criteria, and this means that besides the independence of the judiciary, the compliance with the rule of law or the fight against corruption, the recognition of autochthonous minorities, the respect of the minority rights and the existing legislation should also be observed”. Many see the EU as a structure based on economic interests, but the EU’s motto is United in Diversity. “Neither unity, nor diversity are a commodity to be sold on the single market”, he remarked, adding: “We have a dream about a society where languages and communities are equal, respected and cherished.”
