Minority SafePack - one million signatures for the diversity of Europe

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Minority SafePack - one million signatures for the diversity of Europe is a European citizens' initiative . The Minority SafePack initiative was registered by the European Commission on April 3, 2017 after the Citizens' Committee successfully challenged the original rejection by the European Commission on September 13, 2013 before the European Court of Justice. By the end of the signature collection on April 3, 2018, almost 1.2 million people had signed the initiative. It took a total of one million supporters and reaching a threshold in at least seven Member States.

aims

Logo of the Minority SafePack Initiative

The Minority SafePack Initiative (MSPI for short) comprises a package of legislative proposals aimed at protecting national minorities. To this end, a number of EU legal acts are to be adopted, which should enable the promotion of minority rights, language rights and the protection of the culture of national minorities. The aim is thus to guarantee the security of national minorities across Europe and to strengthen legal regulations for minorities.

The initiative originally comprised eleven proposals, but only nine of them were registered by the European Commission:

  • EU recommendation on the protection and promotion of cultural and linguistic diversity
  • Funding programs for small language communities
  • The creation of a center for linguistic diversity
  • To include the protection of national minorities and the promotion of cultural and linguistic diversity in the objectives of the EU regional development fund
  • Advance research on the added value of minorities in our society and Europe
  • Striving for equality for stateless minorities, e.g. B. Roma
  • An overarching European copyright law so that media and services can be perceived in one's mother tongue
  • Freedom of performance and use of audiovisual content in the minority regions
  • Unconditional inclusion of minorities in regional and state funding programs for the preservation of culture, media and cultural heritage.

Initiators

The initiative was launched in 2013 by the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) and is supported by a citizens' committee. With over 90 member organizations in 33 European countries, FUEN is the largest umbrella organization of the autochthonous, national minorities / ethnic groups in Europe.

Members of the Citizens' Committee:

background

According to estimates, there are around 340 autochthonous minorities in Europe with more than 100 million people. In the European Union alone there are 23 official languages ​​and over 60 regional or minority languages ​​spoken by around 40 million people.

The rights of autochthonous minorities and ethnic groups are not always respected. These communities want to live a life in which they are given the opportunity to cultivate their traditions. According to UNESCO estimates , more than half of the more than 6,000 languages ​​in the world are threatened with extinction. 200 languages ​​have become extinct during the last three generations, around 1,700 languages ​​are seriously endangered, and over 600 languages ​​are barely maintained.

The background to the initiative is the " Copenhagen criteria " regulated in the EU accession process , which, among other things, provide for respect for minorities and the corresponding protection of minorities. On the basis of these criteria, many of the new Member States have legally established progressive models of minority protection. Once a country has joined the Union, further developments and efforts in the individual countries are very different. The initiators intend to close this gap by anchoring minority rights in Union law.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Initiative details - European Citizens' Initiative - European Commission. Retrieved November 25, 2017 .
  2. ↑ EU court strengthens European citizens' initiatives - EURACTIV.de. Retrieved November 25, 2017 (German).
  3. ↑ Website of Minority Safepack initiative minority-safepack.eu , accessed on 26 March 2018th
  4. ↑ FUEN: FUEN: European Citizens' Initiative. Retrieved November 25, 2017 .
  5. ^ Christoph Pan, Beate Sibylle Pfeil: Minority rights in Europe: Handbook of the European ethnic groups . Springer Vienna, 2006, ISBN 978-3-211-35307-3 ( google.be [accessed November 25, 2017]).
  6. ↑ World Atlas on Endangered Languages. Retrieved November 25, 2017 (German).

Web links