We pushed the button: MINORITY SAFEPACK INITIATIVE submitted

Today, on 15 July 2013, our Citizens’ Committee, consisting of:

Hans Heinrich Hansen, President of FUEN
Hunor Kelemen, President of RMDSZ
Anke Spoorendonk, Minister in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
Jannewietske de Vries, President of NPLD and Minister in Friesland, the Netherlands
Karl-Heinz Lambertz, Prime Minister of the German-speaking Community in Belgium
Valentin Inzko, UN High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina
Luis Durnwalder, Prime Minister of South Tyrol,

submitted the citizens’ initiative for the minorities / ethnic groups of Europe – our MINORITY SAFEPACK INITIATIVE – to the European Commission. 

MINORITY SAFEPACK FILM 

The European Commission will have two months time to examine our proposal.  
It does not matter if you are from a “minority” or from a “majority”; all citizens who want to strengthen and bolster the diversity of cultures, languages, identities and regions of Europe, should support us. 

FUEN, the South Tyrolean People’s Party, the Democratic Alliance of the Hungarians in Romania and the Youth of European Nationalities started this initiative. With the slogan: “You are not alone. One million signatures for diversity in Europe” we want to convince the European Union to put the issue of minorities and ethnic groups and also the regional and minority languages high on the political agenda.

In the 47 states of Europe there are circa 340 autochthonous minorities, with more than 100 million people who belong to these minorities. That means that every seventh European is part of an autochthonous minority/ethnic group. Next to 24 official languages, in the EU alone there are more than 60 regional or minority languages, spoken by about 40 million people.

Unfortunately, this large group only plays a marginal role in the political sphere. This is what the initiators want to change with the European Citizens’ Initiative. 
With support from a team of experts we developed our “MINORITY SAFEPACK”, which is a set of policy actions and concrete legal acts (laws) for the promotion and the protection of the European minorities and also the regional or minority languages. Der

Text: MINORITY SAFEPACK INITIATIVE   

The president of FUEN, also chairman of the Citizens’ Committee, Hans Heinrich Hansen, is optimistic:

“We will succeed and collect one million signatures within a year. We want to commit the European Union to start a dialogue. Together with the European Parliament, which will be newly elected in 2014, we want to strengthen the position of the European minorities and cultural and linguistic diversity. Based on dialogue and together will all relevant players. The support from one million citizens would give us a very strong position to negotiate. Only as a Europe of the regions and a Europe of the citizens, the European Union will be successful.”