Se'n parla a Brussèlas...

Call for EU funding guarantee for lesser-used languages

Brussel-Bruxelles, Tuesday, 25 October 2005 by Davyth Hicks



Catalan Euro-MP Bernat Joan called for guaranteed European funding to
support lesser-used languages in a debate in the European Parliament in
Strasbourg last night.



MEPs were debating proposals for the CULTURE 2007 programme which is set up
to support diverse cultural projects in Europe in the period 2007-2013.
Euro-MPs want to see a total of ?600 million made available for the whole
scheme. Bernat Joan argued for specific support for the European Bureau for
Lesser Used Languages (EBLUL) from within this funding.



Speaking in the debate at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Bernat Joan
said:



"In looking at the financial proposals that go with the Culture 2007 scheme,
many of us are gravely concerned about an issue that has not yet been
properly recognised by the European Union: that is the promotion of
minoritized languages and minority languages within the EU.



"I would like to refer in particular to the European Bureau for Lesser Used
Languages, an agency whose main goal is working for the maintenance and
promotion of genuine linguistic diversity in the European Union. A
diversity that's strongly present in Europe, as we saw last weekend with
more than 10,000 people on the streets demonstrating for the Occitan
language.



"According to the Charter for Minority Languages (ECRML), each linguistic
community has the right to maintain, to develop and to pass on to future
generations its own language. In the European Union, we have official
languages, minority languages and languages, like Catalan, that, being
majority languages in their own country, are not a part of the first or of
the second group.



"For the sake of all of these languages, for the sake of linguistic
diversity in Europe, the EU has a duty to provide financial support. That
means a budget for minority languages and a budget for the European Bureau
for Lesser Used Languages."



Mr Joan finished, saying: "I know that what I propose is contrary to any
kind of Jacobinist language policy, which is prevalent in some European
states, but by supporting lesser-used languages we promote diversity,
democracy and freedom. And we promote also the maintenance of a real ecology
of languages in the European Union."



The European Parliament will vote on the Culture 2007 proposals tonight
(Tuesday) with the regional and minority language Intergroup meeting on
Thursday.



Meanwhile, on Wednesday representatives for Catalan speakers in Aragon from
the 'Institució Cultural de la Franja de Ponent' will be in Strasbourg to
give a press conference to highlight the difficult situation of the Catalan
language in the autonomous community of Aragon and to call for official
status.



This group, invited by Bernat Joan, will take the opportunity to outline at
European level the cultural and linguistic discrimination suffered by
Catalan speaking communities under Aragonese administration. The group will
also deliver a complaint about linguistic discrimination to the
Euro-ombudsman and plan to seek redress from the European Court of Human
Rights.

(Eurolang © 2005)


--
XM per la FELCO
www.creo-mp.org


.

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