Brussels, 17/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is the only legally binding international treaty that seeks to protect and promote the use of such languages. This Council of Europe (CoE) text helps keep alive endangered languages as part of Europe's intangible cultural heritage and contributes to the preservation of the cultural wealth of the CoE members which have signed it.
Since 1998, implementation of the treaty has been monitored by an independent committee of experts, which is meeting this week for its 50th session. To mark this auspicious occasion, stock was taken in the opening session.
Much that is positive has happened and that is exclusively to the credit of the Charter, said Stefan Oeter, 2nd Vice-President of the ECRML expert committee. Highlighting Low Saxon in the Netherlands, Scots and Cornish in the United Kingdom, Maronite Arabic and Armenian in Cyprus, Slovenian in Croatia and Croatian in Slovenia, Oeter dwelt on Sami in Finland. This Finno-Ugric language spoken by Lapps (Sami) has nine dialects. Since 2014, it has been the subject of a government programme that builds on longstanding efforts to preserve the language. Now structured nationally, this policy to preserve the Sami language emphasises education and provides immersion schemes for children who have not grown up with the language. “The goal is to increase the number of speakers so that, over time, Sami can be used in administration and the courts”, Oeter said, adding that there is now a Sami radio station and a meeting and information centre set up in Helsinki. Special mention was made of Norway which is doing much to preserve Sami and where “a lexicon of legal terminology is being prepared in the language”.
Mention was made of Hungary where a television channel allows its Serbian, Croatian and Slovak minorities to express themselves in their own languages, the result being “high in colour and multilingual”.
In terms of the media, the expert committee acknowledges that, while it is aware that “consumption habits are changing particularly because of the development of social networks”, it is not yet able to measure the significance or the conclusions to be drawn from this change. Progress has also been made in other CoE countries, such as Switzerland. . “Until the Charter was ratified, little progress had been made for Romansh in television and radio programming”, Oeter noted. “Since 1998, however, a radio station broadcasts in this language which is spoken by only 0.5% of the population”, he said, hailing the support given by the authorities to private television to broadcast in Romansh.
The goal of the ECRML expert committee, beyond preserving regional and minority languages, is to promote their use in public life to provide them with a dynamic and a real chance of survival. “The issue of linguistic heritage goes beyond the cultural field”, stressed Marja Ruotanen, head of the CoE Directorate for Human Dignity and Equality. “It is also the gauge of our living together”, she added.
Participants acknowledged that the dynamic unleashed by the Charter had not been without its set-backs. Signatures and ratifications of the text had slowed effectively to a standstill. “There have been no new signatures since 2005”, noted Jean-Marie Belliard, CoE vice-president local and regional authorities, “even though Bosnia's ratification in 2010 must be highlighted”. “We have to go beyond 25 state-parties”, insisted Miroslav Papa, Croatia's permanent representative to the CoE.
The CoE executive body reaffirmed the crucial role of the ECRML in a public statement published on 21 February on the occasion of International Mother Language Day.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), not sitting on its hands, last year passed a resolution on the situation of minority languages in Europe which calls on member states to sign or ratify the Charter.
The economic crisis has done nothing to help the ECRML. Priorities have changed and states have taken on more responsibilities than they had in the 1980s. They say they are “tired” of the follow-up procedures and reports. “So what can we do?” wondered Francesco Palermo, chair of the consultative committee on the framework convention for the protection of national minorities. “Well, for example, we can work together with the CoE's European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), coordinate our mechanisms on issues such as the Roma and point out that our founding texts are complementary - which means that ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights implies that of the ECRML” he argued.
To date, 25 states have ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, 17 of which are EU countries (Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom). Eight others - including two from the EU, France and Malta - have signed the Charter but have yet to ratify it. Of the 13 CoE members which have neither signed nor ratified the Charter, eight are EU countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania and Portugal).