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Minority rights: Europe must relearn what it once pioneered, says Fernand de Varennes. But how can it do so? The Canadian legal scholar was the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues until 2023. Now he summarises his observations in an interview.
Minorities have less political support at the national and European levels than they did at the turn of the millennium. This was the almost unanimous conclusion of the participants at the congress of the umbrella organisation for minorities, FUEN, in Hüsem/Husum. One person who has followed this development with a global academic perspective is the Canadian legal scholar and university lecturer, Fernand de Varennes, who until 2023 was the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues. He took the time to sit down for an interview in Hüsem/Husum during the FUEN Congress. He spoke to 'Der Nordschleswiger' about what he and 39 other experts, who came together at a roundtable this spring in Brussels, discussed to advise Europe's minorities on how to reverse the trend.
About the interviewee
Fernand de Varennes, born in 1958, is a Canadian legal scholar known for his expertise in minority rights, the prevention of ethnic conflicts, federalism and constitutional autonomy. Throughout his career, he has held academic positions, including as a professor at the University of Pretoria in South Africa and as Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Université de Moncton in Canada. From 2017 to 2023, De Varennes served as the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues.
What was the conference in Brussels this spring about?
Fernand de Varennes: The main concern was the treatment and protection of minorities and the need to make progress in this area. The focus was more on taking concrete measures to improve the treatment of minorities and respect for their rights in the EU and the Council of Europe.
At the FUEN Congress here in Hüsem/Husum, you said that there has been no progress in this regard in the past 20 years.
De Varennes: Well, that was perhaps a bit of an exaggeration to make the point. But in many ways, issues around national minorities seem to have taken a back seat. We even heard today that only the Roma minority was discussed at meetings of the Council of Europe and no other EU minorities. And it is well known that the European Commission has refused to even consider the recommendations of the Minority SafePack Initiative and other petitions. It seems that minority issues have become secondary over the past 20 years for various reasons. Rising nationalism is also a contributing factor. Nationalism, in many cases, means that the majority population is favoured.
What does this mean for minorities?
De Varennes: Despite many treaties and documents, we see a trend in which the rights of minorities are being increasingly restricted, for example in education in their own language. Some governments say that the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages does not apply to them or only to certain minorities. This development shows a dwindling political will to protect minority rights, both at EU and Council of Europe levels.
At the same time, the rights of certain population groups are becoming more prominent in the public eye than before. Why not those of national minorities?
De Varennes: There is a certain double standard. The human rights of other groups – women, children, indigenous peoples – are strongly defended, but the rights of minorities are receiving less and less attention. National governments are increasingly restricting the rights of minorities. In Spain, for example, education in the Catalan language has been restricted, and in France, the existence of minorities is even denied. Courts have recently ruled that it is against the French constitution to use Basque or other languages for official purposes. This trend can also be seen in other countries such as Poland, where the rights of the German minority have been curtailed.
So, a downward trend?
De Varennes: The experts concluded that the situation is deteriorating. Some call for remaining optimistic and emphasising good practices. But this is not the general trend.
Can we then continue with the existing structures?
De Varennes: That's the main point: most experts agree that the existing mechanisms need to be reformed. The criticism levelled at the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is that they are too slow and too easy to ignore. These mechanisms need to be improved.
If you have rights but can't enforce them, that's a shortcoming.
Fernand de Varennes
Does this mean that these existing tools are not being used effectively? Or do we need new tools?
De Varennes: Both. There are tools that need to be improved, such as the European Charter and the Framework Convention, which were a significant step forward 30 years ago but are not working as they should. We also need more tools. The existing documents are legal treaties, but they are not directly applicable. If you have rights but can't enforce them, that's a shortcoming.
What new tools do you see?
De Varennes: Minorities need to be more visible and present in the institutions of the EU and the Council of Europe. There are mechanisms for other groups such as women, children or Roma, but almost nothing for national minorities.
And the greater the conflicts in these areas become, the more politicians say that minorities are the problem.
De Varennes: And I would say it's the opposite. The problem is when minorities are treated badly. This was partly the case in Ukraine and Russia, where minorities are increasingly oppressed. That exacerbates the problems.
Now we are here in Hüsem/Husum in the German-Danish border region. What role can minorities play here? For a long time, they were seen as international role models. Should it stay that way?
De Varennes: Europe can show that it works when minority rights are respected. One example is the agreement between Germany and Denmark or the situation in South Tyrol. These examples of cross-border cooperation have led to peace and stability and can serve as role models.
In your role at the United Nations, you have had a global view of the issue of minorities. We sometimes lack that in Europe. What can we learn from other minorities around the world?
De Varennes: In other parts of the world where conflicts have been resolved peacefully, the same principle has been applied: Minorities are respected and treated well, and so they become loyal citizens. This is the key to peace and stability. One example is Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, where different languages and cultures coexist without any language being banned or restricted. This kind of balance, which reflects the reality on the ground, is also a human rights approach to linguistic and cultural diversity. This is a model that Europe should also pay more attention to. And that is the lesson here in Europe: you can also learn again. Because this lesson was learnt and applied here 30 years ago. But nowadays it seems to have been somewhat forgotten.
Citation
https://doi.org/10.57708/bczrikpssrdegknx_deeyjw
von Tiedemann, C. ‘Europe must relearn how to protect minorities’. https://doi.org/10.57708/BCZRIKPSSRDEGKNX_DEEYJW
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This blog is supported by the European Association of Daily Newspapers in Minority and Regional Languages (MIDAS). MIDAS was founded in 2001 to provide assistance to minority language newspapers and nowadays has members all over Europe. MIDAS serves as a platform for exchange, uniting minority language newspapers to present a collective voice to the European institutions.
