The Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity (NPLD) launched its European Roadmap for Linguistic Diversity in the European Parliament in Brussels yesterday. NPLD is an important partner of FUEN and the two organisations work together in Brussels to advocate for the regional and minority languages in Europe. Both FUEN and NPLD want the EU to respect its own motto: “United in Diversity” and that the EU increases its support to those languages in Europe that are endangered.

At the launch, FUEN Vice President Loránt Vincze expressed FUEN’s support for the Roadmap: “We will be a strategic partner along the adoption and implementation period of this project.” At the meeting in the European Parliament, Vincze also emphasised the proposed measures in the Minority SafePack Initiative that aim at creating favourable conditions for linguistic and cultural diversity. “The Roadmap contains the same thread, the same elements.” 
The FUEN Vice President suggested that mother tongue education and the right to use the mother tongue should be more emphasized in the document. He also offered to include the Map of Minorities & Regional and Minority Languages as an annex to the Roadmap. “I am certain that the aspiration of the Roadmap to realise the inclusion of language rights within the Charter for Fundamental Rights, and the long-term objective of the FUEN to include also the autochthonous minority rights within the fundamental rights catalogue would certainly change the course of history for our languages and for our communities.”

The European Roadmap for Linguistic Diversity aims to reaffirm the European Union’s commitment to linguistic diversity and to ensure that all languages spoken in Europe are seen as common assets, which need to be supported and promoted. The Roadmap is set within the framework of the present context of the European Union, where the economy is at the forefront of the political agenda. Well thought-out policies and initiatives are called for if strengthening the vitality of languages is to be linked to the creation of prosperous economies, building cohesive societies and working towards a common destiny together in Europe.

In the upcoming months, the Roadmap will be open for consultation. After that a final version will be launched at a conference in Brussels in October 2015.

Photo 1: FUEN Vice President Loránt Vincze
Photo 2: NPLD representatives Jannewietske de Vries, Meirion Prys Jones and Vicent Climent