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Reply to Recommendation | Doc. 14601 | 06 July 2018
The protection and promotion of regional or minority languages in Europe
1. The Committee of
Ministers welcomes Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 2118 (2018) on “The protection and promotion of regional or minority
languages in Europe”, which it has transmitted to the Committee
of Experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages,
for information and possible comments.
2. Coinciding with the 20th anniversary
of the entry into force of the European Charter for Regional or Minority
Languages, the recommendation is a very timely political initiative
by the Parliamentary Assembly in support of this very important
treaty of the Council of Europe. For its part, the Committee of
Ministers will use the anniversary as an opportunity to seek to
bring a new dynamic to the Charter. Under the Croatian Chairmanship,
which has included the Charter among its priorities, an international
conference on the subject took place in Strasbourg on 18 and 19
June 2018. Bringing together many actors and stakeholders, the event provided
the opportunity to assess what has been achieved thus far with the
Charter, to consider how it may be made more effective by strengthening
its supervisory mechanism and to identify current challenges as
well as possible responses to these from the Council of Europe.
3. The call in the recommendation for more States to ratify the
Charter, and for the existing States Parties to ensure its implementation
and to consider taking on additional obligations (paragraph 4.1),
while also supporting the principle of acquired rights in the field
of minority language rights, is supported by the Committee of Ministers.
It regularly invites those States that have not done so to consider
signing and/or ratifying the Charter. As indicated above, the Charter
will be given special prominence during the Croatian Chairmanship, and
the importance of wider ratification will be underlined on that
occasion. This is already the subject of continuing efforts on the
part of the Council of Europe, which engages with the relevant national
authorities in order to promote ratification of the Charter by raising
awareness, providing legal advice and building capacity. Mention
may be made in this respect of the Council of Europe’s Action Plan
for Georgia (2016-2019), one of the objectives of which is the promotion
and implementation of minority rights and languages in accordance with
the standards of the Charter. Similarly, the Council of Europe’s
Action Plan for the Republic of Moldova (2017-2020) supports a scheme
to apply the standards of the Charter in pilot municipalities by
building their capacity to implement relevant activities. A further
recent example is the meeting held in December 2017 with relevant
stakeholders in Portugal to discuss the possibility of that country’s
acceptance of the Charter.
4. As regards the issue of delays in the monitoring procedure
(paragraph 4.2), it can be noted that the international conference
on the protection of identity through language rights, jointly organised
by Hungary and the Council of Europe in Budapest on 13 and 14 November
2017, was devoted partly to this. The Committee of Ministers will
shortly be considering a set of proposals aimed at ensuring that
States Parties submit their reports on time.
5. The recommendation requests the Committee of Ministers to
report to the Parliamentary Assembly on the Charter’s monitoring
procedure and the results obtained (paragraph 4.3). Given that the
Secretary General reports to the Parliamentary Assembly every two
years on the application of the Charter (as required by Article 16),
the Committee of Ministers does not consider that a parallel report
covering essentially the same issues would be a useful exercise.
The existing working contacts between the Parliamentary Assembly
and the Committee of Experts may also be mentioned here.
6. Regarding the suggestion of bringing in an annual prize for
countries to recompense their efforts on behalf of regional or minority
languages (paragraph 4.4), the Committee of Ministers expresses
its reservations at the idea. It recalls that the Charter is a binding
international treaty; States Parties comply with its standards as
a matter of legal obligation. It does not seem appropriate to link
such compliance to an official prize. The efforts and achievements
of States Parties are reflected and given due credit in the reports
drawn up by the Committee of Experts. The Committee of Ministers
could, however, give consideration to a proposal for a prize for
the protection of regional or minority languages by other actors.
7. The various means suggested for improving the application
of the Charter (paragraph 4.5) are all undoubtedly useful. They
are already used to a certain extent by the Committee of Experts
and its Secretariat in the course of their monitoring and promotional
work. The Committee of Ministers also recalls a fundamental principle
of international law that a State is only bound by those treaty
obligations for which it has expressed its consent. Following the
Croatian Chairmanship conference, reflection will continue on new
methods and means to safeguard and promote the use of regional or
minority languages in Europe.
8. As for co-operation with the European Union in this context
(paragraph 4.6), this is exemplified in the current Council of Europe/European
Union Partnership for Good Governance projects on protecting national minorities
and minority languages in Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Belarus,
and on strengthening the protection of national minorities and minority
languages in Ukraine. The Committee of Ministers is ready to explore
the possibility of further co-operation in this field with the relevant
European Union institutions.