11th annual minority conference in Târgu-Mureș / Marosvásárhely, Romania

“The protection of national minorities and language groups will not be complete in Europe without the harmonization between the existing legal frame of the Council of Europe and that of the European Union. The straightforward way would be to start the creation of an EU legal framework in this field”, stated Loránt Vincze, FUEN Vice President, at the 11th annual minority conference organized by the Bernády György Cultural Foundation in Târgu-Mureș / Marosvásárhely, Romania on 4-5 September.

Speaking on behalf of the Federal Union of European Nationalities, Loránt Vincze gave a presentation about the European implementation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. “During the years, we could observe that in the overwhelming majority of the member states the adoption of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities as well as of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages had positive results. The Charter has become a successful tool for the preservation of minority languages, even of threatened ones, due to the assessment and verification mechanism of the Council of Europe in combination with the recommendations of the Council of Ministers, but we still have a long way to go. Many European minorities need effective intervention for their protection, measures that we expect from the EU institutions”, said Vice President Loránt Vincze. It is not impossible to think that successful European models of cooperation and coexistence as the one designed in the Saar region in Germany might someday be implemented in Romania, particularly in Târgu-Mureș / Marosvásárhely.

The main topic of the seminar hosted by László Borbély, who is the President of the Bernády György Cultural Foundation and political Vice President of RMDSZ was “The European Regional or Minority Languages”. Peggy Heikkinen, representative of the Swedish Assembly in Finland and Vice President of NPLD, gave a presentation about the experiences of the Swedish speaking community in Finland. Representatives of the national minorities in Romania and local authorities attended the seminar.