Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-02-03-Speech-2-441"
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"en.20090203.23.2-441"2
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"Whereas the interests of any other social minorities protected by anti-discrimination regulations are vigorously defended, European legal protection, not to mention political will, is reticent where traditional national minorities are concerned. Yet the existence of these minorities within the European Union is not a political question but a matter of fact – there are millions living within the EU who are not immigrants. They live within European Member States while never having moved from their ancestral lands. It was just that in the course of events in the twentieth century, the boundaries of their countries have shifted around them, leaving them behind ever since facing insoluble dilemmas. How are they to preserve their identity and community, how can they provide their children with a secure image of a twenty-first century future? We must at last admit that the problems of these communities cannot be resolved purely by means of universal human rights or anti-discrimination regulations. These communities rightfully demand all those things that, in the case of similar-sized populations, the European Union deems to be the right of those who are part of a majority. This is why EU regulation is necessary and why the assistance of the EU is necessary. Such communities are right in thinking, for instance, that autonomy, which has brought prosperity and development to the minorities of the South Tyrol in Italy, would also bring them a desirable solution.
Certainly, forms of autonomy – including perhaps territorial autonomy – could give a positive and manageable future to such communities. There should be no mystification surrounding such communities, but they should be discussed openly, since if such an option can be a positive solution in one Member State without harming the State’s territorial integrity, it could similarly prove to be a solution in other Member States as well. The rightful demands of these minorities, which are based on fundamental principles and current practice in the European Union, cannot constitute taboo subjects in the EU in the twenty-first century!"@en1
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