MINELRES: FUEN Resolution 2007-09 on the minority policy dimension of cross-border cooperation

[minelres@lists.microlink.lv]

Original sender: Daniel Hegedus <dhegedus@eokik.hu>


Dear Moderator,

I would like to kindly inform you and the readers of the mailing
list about FUEN Resolution No. 2007-09 on the minority policy dimension
of cross-border cooperations. The text was elaborated by Public
Foundation for European Comparative Minority Research and adopted by
FUEN on its Congress in May 2007 in Tallinn.

We would like to stress the fact that this is the only one existing
international document in this topic.
Please, use this document in your work if you agree with its content
and make reference to it in order that this important dimension of
minority policy could get more accent.

Yours sincerely,

Daniel Hegedus
research fellow
Public Foundation for European
Comparative Minority Research
E-mail: dhegedus@eokik.hu
Web: www.eokik.hu
Phone: (+36) 70 215 7562

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Resolution 2007-09

The Assembly of Delegates of Federal Union of European Nationalities
passes the following resolution in Tallinn on 17 May 2007.


The Federal Union of European Nationalities,

- having regard to the principles of regionalism and subsidiarity, as
cornerstones of the European Union, 

- having regard to the problems of national minorities divided by
borders,

- having regard to the relative lower living quality of the population
living in border regions, with special regard to minorities without
kin-states,

- having regard to the principles of democratic equality and
self-government,

- having regard to the rights of minorities to establish and maintain
free contacts across frontiers, guaranteed in international conventions,

- having regard to the Framework Convention for the Protection of
National Minorities, to the European Charter for Regional or Minority
Languages, to the European Charter of Local Self-Government, to the
Outline Convention on Transfrontier Co-operation between Territorial
Communities or Authorities and its Additional Protocols, all signed
under the aegis of Council of Europe, and to Recommendation No. 1201
(1993) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, 

- having regard to the regional policy of the European Union, to
community initiatives supporting cross-border cooperations, and in
particular to Regulation (EC) No 1082/2006 of the European Parliament
and of the Council on a European grouping of territorial cooperation,
adopted the following resolution:

A. transfrontier cooperations and contacts can contribute to the
historical reconciliation, peaceful togetherliving, development and
constructive cooperation of neighbouring States and majority and
minority societies in a Europe divided by borders and overtaken by
ethnic tensions in the beginning of the 21. century too;

B. with this goal in view it is necessary to guarantee the participation
of minority groups in the elaboration, implementation and monitoring of
transfrontier cooperation programs. It is indispensable to mention that
reaching the above-mentioned goal complex cooperation programs should be
elaborated, and beside the economic and spatial planning dimension the
fields of educational and cultural cooperations should get more accent,
as specifically the problems and interests of minorities - in particular
cases without a kin-state - specifically living in border regions
too;       

C. in this reason we strongly condemn aspirations and policies of States
intending to restrict cross-border cooperations or want to efface their
minority dimension;

D. we proclaim that against the counter-interested, sometimes
ethnopolitically motivated State policies it is necessary to promote the
further strengthening of the legal character and institutionalisation of
transfrontier cooperations. For this purpose we warmly welcome the
regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European
grouping of territorial cooperation (EGTC) and fully support the work of
the Council of Europe in elaborating the structure of Euroregional
Co-operation Groupings (ECG); 

E. we emphasise, that organs of transfrontier cooperation do not
constitute a new administrative level and do not harm the sovereignty
and territorial integrity of States. They only constitute a cooperation
platform for the transfrontier solution of social, economic and
infrastructural problems in border regions;

F. we underline that transfrontier cooperations are based on democratic
principles of self-government and subsidiarity, they could be therefore
restrained by governments only in extreme and justified cases;

G. we emphasise the importance of multilingualism and language teaching
- above all in connection with languages of neighbouring countries and
of minorities living in border regions - to form a spirit of mutual
tolerance and understanding and develop a competitive workforce in
border regions;

H. and finally we confess to a cooperation-oriented and tolerant
spirituality facilitated by transfrontier cooperations too, which
exceeds the nationalist, centralized and statist thinking, dividing the
peoples of Europe in the heads and lays down there new borders yet
too.

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