EBLUL's Partnership for Diversity Forum brings minority regions together

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Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 08:52:07 +0200 (EET)
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Subject: EBLUL's Partnership for Diversity Forum brings minority regions together

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: Margret Oberhofer <[email protected]>

EBLUL's Partnership for Diversity Forum brings minority
regions together


EBLUL’s Partnership for Diversity Forum brings minority regions
together

'Linguistic diversity is a wealth and not a problem. It is valuable
for the tourism, the local products and it makes the region more
exotic', said Bojan Brezigar, President of the European Bureau for
Lesser Used Languages (EBLUL) at the opening of the Partnership for
Diversity Forum.  This year's forum, organized by EBLUL was held in
Palma de Mallorca and had the aim to bring minority regions together
in a partnership in order to improve the situation of the different
lesser-used languages in Europe.

'The forum is addressed to regional and local authorities and should
give the opportunity to learn about each others linguistic reality',
said Brezigar in front of the 105 participants from all over Europe.
Also representatives of the Balearic Islands, hosting the event,
shared this idea: 'With this Partnership for Diversity we want to
share ideas and strengthen ourselves', said Damià Pons i Pons,
Minister of Education and Culture of the Government of the Balearic
Island.

'With hosting this forum we can achieve two goals: On one side the
people living on this island learn about the European linguistic
diversity and inform them that the language problems we have here on
the island are similar to other parts of Europe. On the other side the
participants of the forum can spread information about the Catalan
reality here and be our ambassadors in the rest of Europe', said Joan
Melià, responsible for the language policy of the Balearic Islands.

Regions and their policy will undoubtedly also be important in the
future: 'It seems clear that regions will have a greater visibility
and more responsibility for their own issues in the future and this
also includes linguistic diversity', Brezigar stressed. 'And this time
is especially important for regional and minority languages, because
the discussion to integrate them into the European treaties is held
now.'

EUROPEAN BUREAU FOR
LESSER USED LANGUAGES (EBLUL)
www.eblul.org

Rue Saint Josse 49
B-1210 Bruxelles

TEL: 0032/2/ 250 31 64
FAX: 0032/2/ 218 19 74

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