Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-11-24-Speech-2-504"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20091124.39.2-504"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Commissioner, I consider it a success that in the debate proposed by my colleague, Edit Bauer, and myself, the European Parliament is finally dealing with the issue of national and linguistic minorities using their own language, which also means dealing with Slovakia’s discriminatory language law. I am also particularly pleased that the Commission has adopted an unequivocal stance on this occasion with regard to minority language rights.
I wish to thank Commissioner Orban in particular for mentioning the Council of Europe’s Charter for Regional or Minority Languages among the rights and useful documents he referred to. Similarly, I think that it is especially important that Mr Buzek visited Bratislava and issued a clear statement on this matter. After all, all of us who have been dealing with human rights in this Chamber for years feel that it is outrageous that, as the Treaty of Lisbon dawns, citizens belonging to a minority are not allowed to use their own mother tongue in the land of their birth and cannot enjoy the rights guaranteed by democracy. Indeed, the law makes it a possible criminal offence for someone to exercise the fundamental human right to use their mother tongue. This implies that the minority are second-class citizens in their homeland. We are talking, Mr Paška, about 530 000 Hungarians in Slovakia and 20-30 000 Slovaks in Hungary, just to give you a comparison.
However, I would simply like to reply to Mr Swoboda that a minority is fighting in this case for its most basic human right against the majority. It is not two countries fighting against each other. The European Union must intervene without fail and speak out against the Slovak and any other such law which jeopardises the use of minority languages and the protection of minorities’ identity as such laws contravene every international document, including the basic principles now reinforced in the Treaty of Lisbon and the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I would simply like to remind my fellow Members that already in 1995, Slovakia was the object of serious international criticism when the language law was first adopted. As a result of this, and specifically as one of the conditions of initiating the EU accession process, Slovakia had to remove the paragraphs on penalties from the legislation. Therefore, 10 years ago, the European Union opposed what it is now extremely reluctant to speak out against."@en1
|
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples