Seminar on the Role of Minorities in Bilateral Relations, Slovenia, 22-23 May 2000
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Subject: Seminar on the Role of Minorities in Bilateral Relations, Slovenia, 22-23 May 2000
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Nicola Markes-Goerlach
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Seminar on the Role of Minorities in Bilateral Relations,
Slovenia, 22-23 May 2000
23 June 2000
Regional Seminar on the Role of National Minorities in Bilateral
Relations
Field of activity /
Domaine d'activit=E9:
Minorities
Programme:
Joint Programme between the European Commission and the Council of
Europe "National Minorities in Europe"
Country / Pays:
Slovenia
Date and place / Date et lieu:
22-23 May 2000
CoE experts / Experts du CdE:
General Rapporteur: Ms Kinga GAL from the European Centre for Minority
Issues (ECMI), Mr. Ole ESPERSEN, CBSS High-Commissioner on Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights, including the Rights of Persons
belonging to National Minorities, Council of the Baltic Sea States and
Mr. Csaba GY=D6RFFY, Chairperson of the Working Group on Minorities of
the Central European Initiative (CEI) participated in the meeting as
experts in their quality of representatives of sub-regional
organisations. Mr. Ferenc HAJOS, Member of the Advisory Committee of
the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
also participated in the meeting as an expert. Mr. Alberto GASPARINI,
Director of the Institute of International Sociology in Gorizia (ISIG)
who had confirmed his participation in the meeting unfortunately was
not present.
CoE Secretariat / Secr=E9tariat du CdE:
Mr. Micha=EBl GUET and Ms. Nicola MARKES-GOERLACH of the Directorate
General of Human Rights.
Participants (role and capacity /r=F4le et qualit=E9):
Officials, representatives of local authorities from a border region
or from a town with a large minority population and minority
organisations from Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary,
Italy, Romania, Slovenia and "the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia". Bulgaria was represented through its Embassy in Ljubljana.
Albania and Greece did not send participants to the Seminar. The
Acting Head of the European Commission Delegation in Ljubljana, Mr.
Vincent PIKET, as well as Mr. Niklas REUTER, responsible for human
rights in the Delegation, took part in the Seminar.
Total number of participants / Nombre total de participants:
30 participants.
Partner institutions/organisations / Institutions/organisations
partenaires:
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia.
Origin or reference to other activities / Origine ou r=E9f=E9rence =E0
d'autres activit=E9s:
The proposal to hold a seminar on the role of national minorities in
bilateral relations was submitted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
of the Republic of Slovenia on the occasion of the Fifth Meeting of
Governmental Offices for National Minorities held in Skopje on 10-11
December 1997 in the framework of the previous Joint Programme on
Minorities. The later proposal made by the Office for National
Minorities of the Government of the Republic of Croatia to have a
Seminar in Croatia on cultural minority aspects of bilateral/regional
relations led to a combination of the two proposals: a first part
focusing on cultural issues held on 19-20 May in Opatija, Croatia, and
a second part, more general and with a larger number of participating
countries, held in Brdo, Slovenia, to cover not only cultural issues
but also socio-economic ones.
Objectives / Objectifs:
The main objective of the Seminar was to discuss minority issues in
the context of bilateral relations, in particular socio-economic and
cultural aspects. These two themes were the subject of working group
discussions. Representatives of two sub-regional organisations, namely
the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) and the Central European
Initiative (CEI), had been invited to present an outlook of how
minority issues are discussed in the context of sub-regional
co-operation. The programme also focused on the work and functioning
of sub-committees dealing with minority issues in the framework of
bilateral agreements. A visit to the Italian community in the border
region was organised.
General evaluation / Evaluation
g=E9n=E9rale:
The initial objective to have concrete discussions on how to reinforce
and develop regional and/or bilateral co-operation in the field of
minorities around two geographic poles, i.e. the Central
European/Adriatic region (Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia
and Bosnia and Herzegovina) and the Balkan/South Eastern Europe region
(Albania, "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", Greece,
Bulgaria and Romania) could not be fully achieved due to the fact that
Albania and Greece did not send participants to the Seminar and that
Bulgaria and Italy were numerically under-represented. This situation
limited the scope of discussions, not only in plenary sessions but
also during the working groups.
However, the Seminar was judged positively by the participants and
representatives of international organisations as it allowed for
open-minded exchanges of views. Participants from countries of the
former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (namely Slovenia, Croatia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina and "the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia") concluded themselves that this Seminar had been a very
good and rare opportunity to exchange views in the field of minorities
permitting the identification of very similar problems and common
areas for future co-operation.
According to the Croatian participants, this Seminar proved to be an
excellent opportunity to pursue discussions on the importance of
cultural aspects in bilateral/regional relations, following up the
Seminar in Opatija "Minorities as a Bridge between Cultures" that took
place on 19-20 May 2000.
The representatives of the European Commission Delegation in
Ljubljana, Mr. Vincent PIKET and Mr. Niklas REUTER attended the first
day of discussions with interest and reiterated European Commission's
full support for the reinforcement of bilateral relations in the
region. In his presentation, Mr. PIKET referred to the Treaty of
Amsterdam and to the upcoming European Charter of Fundamental Rights.
He mentioned a number of instruments and programmes aiming at the
promotion of democracy, equality and non-discrimination and mentioned
consultation with the Council of Europe in the preparation of
evaluation reports for candidate countries to the European Union,
emphasising as main issues Roma, non-citizens and linguistic rights
linked with the use of the state and minority languages. Last but not
least he indicated that the European Commission had prepared two
publications, one concerning the fights against racism and xenophobia
and a second entitled "EU support for Roma communities in Central and
Eastern Europe".
The strong commitment of the Council of Europe to strengthening
transborder co-operation was reiterated, and particular reference was
made to the recent adoption of the Committee of Ministers'
Recommendation No. R (2000)1 on fostering transfrontier co-operation
between territorial communities or authorities in the cultural field.
The importance of the work of the Congress of Local and Regional
Authorities of Europe in the field of transfrontier co-operation was
underlined. Reference was made to the twenty-year old European Outline
Convention on Transfrontier Co-operation between Territorial
Communities or Authorities, which had still not been ratified by most
of the participating countries of the Seminar (except Austria, Hungary
and Italy) and to specific provisions (Art. 18) of the Framework
Convention for the Protection of National Minorities dealing with
these issues. The monitoring mechanism of the Framework Convention was
explained by Mr. Ferenc HAJOS, member of the Advisory Committee, who
in the past took part in joint commissions between Hungary and
Slovenia and therefore was able to provide the participants with
concrete examples of needs and obstacles in bilateral relations.
Mr. Csaba GY=D6RFFY gave concrete examples (crossing points,
education, use of languages, etc.) of regional co-operation in the
field of national minorities between the 16 member States of the
Central European Initiative and made particular reference to Article
23 (transborder co-operation) of the CEI political Instrument for the
Protection of National Minorities Rights. Mr. Gy=F6rffy indicated a
number of Euroregions which could serve as models, such as
Alp-Adriatic (Italy, Austria, Slovenia), or the Carpathian Euroregion
(Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine).
Mr. Ole ESPERSEN presented his work as High-Commissioner on Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights, including the Rights of Persons
belonging to National Minorities, nominated by the Danish Government
to oversee human rights in the Baltic Sea region, and insisted on the
citizenship and linguistic issues, on the participation of minorities
in local elections, on the right for family reunification, on free
access to the labour market and to the media, etc. He appealed to the
common-sense of all governments to protect everyone's welfare.
Results and conclusions / R=E9sultats et
conclusions:
Ms. Kinga GAL from ECMI, who was the General Rapporteur of the
Seminar, summarised discussions as follows:
* bilateral relations regarding minorities, whether based on bilateral
agreements or not, seem to be more developed in the field of culture
(embracing also linguistic rights, education, media) than in the
social and economic spheres;
* the economic and financial empowering of minorities is however
essential to their development and to limit the negative effects of
demographic trends;
* more financial assistance to minority groups is needed, as well as
for the development of regions inhabited by minorities;
* the lack of transborder infrastructures and connections (roads,
bridges, railways, airport connections, etc) in many of the
participating countries is an obvious obstacle to transfrontier
co-operation;
* the private sector should also be approached and mobilised
concerning minority problems and minorities should create relevant
structures to foster transborder co-operation;
* models of self-governance for minorities should be more generally
envisaged;
* whenever transborder co-operation in the field of minorities seems
difficult, the development of cultural co-operation appears to be a
good starting point for bilateral talks, as it is usually less
problematic;
* granting cultural rights is not enough: provisions must be
implemented in practice and minorities must be given an opportunity to
use these rights;
* specific national and interregional programmes and projects on and
for the Roma should be developed in South Eastern Europe (economic
development, social integration, education, housing, etc.);
* since the probability to adopt stronger European standards and new
political instruments on minorities is minimal, participating
countries were urged by the General Rapporteur and the CBSS
High-Commissioner to implement the provisions of these standards and
instruments, and if measures are not adequate enough, to include such
measures in bilateral treaties;
* the importance of international co-operation for the Roma has been
underlined and since the Roma usually do not benefit directly from
bilateral treaties, a multilateral treaty on the protection of Roma
should be proposed for signature.
The participants and representatives of regional organisations
stressed the importance of the Joint Programme as a way to propose a
forum of exchange of views and discussion on concrete follow-up
activities.
The importance of Euroregions was stressed by the General Rapporteur,
Mr. Gy=F6rffy and the Slovenian organisers, who also recalled that
joint committees under bi-lateral treaties should include
representatives of minorities and take into account their concerns.
Participating countries drew inter alia the following conclusions:
Bosnia and Herzegovina considered this seminar very useful to overcome
its isolationism and expressed the hope that bilateral agreements
would soon be signed with neighbouring countries, although Bosnia and
Herzegovina first had to tackle the issue of refugees and pursue its
reflection on a definition of minorities adapted to the context of
Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Bosnian representatives took copies of a
number of bilateral treaties and said that they would welcome any
assistance in this field.
"The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" reiterated its wish to see
improvements in bilateral relations with its neighbouring countries in
the field of national minorities.
The Croatian participants received support from other delegations
concerning their proposal to do a comparative study on the situation
of minorities in South Eastern Europe, in particular on programmes for
the Roma community.
Bulgaria expressed the wish to see increasing regional co-operation in
the field of Roma education and shared the Romanian and Croatian
proposal to have a multilateral agreement on Roma. They stressed the
importance of opening national schools in other countries and to
abolish the visa regime.
Romania encouraged other countries to sign multilateral agreements and
to be as pragmatic as possible in the implementation of treaties.
Hungary called for the reinforcement of decision-making powers for
minorities at different levels.
Italy said that the main problem was the social economic development
of minorities and insisted on the need to create local structures to
deal with transborder co-operation.
Slovenia recalled that the creation of a network of institutes dealing
with minority issues contributes to reinforce regional co-operation
and that borders should become more and more open in the context of
European integration.
Austria indicated that one of the best ways to build bridges between
countries and minorities is the development of cultural co-operation
(which concurs with one of the conclusions of the Joint Programme
Seminar in Opatija, Croatia).
****
Nicola Markes-Goerlach
Council of Europe
Directorate General of Human Rights
Secretariat of the Framework Convention
for the Protection of National Minorities and of the DH-MIN
F-67075 Strasbourg-Cedex
[email protected]
http://www.humanrights.coe.int/minorities/index.htm
Tel: 00 33 - (0)3 90 21 44 33
Fax: 00 33 - (0)3 88 41 27 93
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