Follow-up to the Minority SafePack initiative

Priority question for written answer P-001361/2024
to the Commission
Rule 144
Raquel García Hermida-Van Der Walle (Renew)

The Minority SafePack initiative (MSPI), an important citizens' initiative to improve the position of national minorities and minority languages in Europe, is supported by more than a million Europeans and has been embraced by the European Parliament[1][2][3]. On 14 January 2021, however, the Commission decided not to put forward further legislative initiatives.

Yet reports by the Committee of Experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages point inter alia to the fact that the scope for using Frisian in the courts in the Netherlands is receding, that the teaching of the history of minorities in Sweden is disappearing from some history classes, and that Roma in Romania do not have equal access to education and there are serious deficiencies as regards Romani language teaching[4][5][6].

• 1.Does the Commission agree that these reports show that action currently being taken is not sufficient to protect minority languages in the EU, which are spoken by more than 50 million EU citizens?
• 2.Is the Commission prepared to reconsider its position on the MSPI in the light of recent developments and to put forward legislative initiatives?
• 3.If it is, on what conclusions and recommendations regarding the MSPI will the Commission act?

Submitted: 16.7.2024

• [1] http://minority-safepack.eu/.
• [2] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2020-0370_EN.html.
• [3] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2023-0230_EN.html.
• [4] Sweden: https://rm.coe.int/swedenecrml8-en/1680aa8932.
• [5] The Netherlands: https://rm.coe.int/netherlandsecrml7-en/1680aa8930.
• [6] Romania: https://rm.coe.int/romaniaecrml3-en/1680ac8e27.