PACE has urged Council of Europe member States to do more to protect minority languages – and called for the creation of an annual prize for countries which actively promote their use.
In a resolution and recommendation based on a report by Rózsa Hoffmann (Hungary EPP/CD), the Assembly pointed out that only 25 out of the 47 member States had ratified the Council of Europe’s own charter for encouraging language diversity, and even some of those were failing to submit reports to its monitoring body.
“Linguistic diversity is part of the common European cultural heritage; protection and support for the development of these languages is therefore a fundamental European value,” the parliamentarians said.
They urged governments to co-operate with the charter’s monitoring mechanism, as well as a series of other steps to support speakers of minority or regional languages throughout Europe.
