What is MSPI?
In the European Union, there are about 50 million people who belong to a national minority or a minority language community. They make a strong contribution to the linguistic and cultural diversity of Europe. Together with other Europeans, they want to define the future of Europe; a future in which not only large languages or dominant cultures, but also minorities are taken into account. Therefore, they want protection and support for the preservation of their identity. This is what the Minority SafePack Initiative calls for. It is a package of law proposals for the safety of national minorities, a set of EU legal acts that enable the promotion of minority rights, language rights, and the protection of their cultures.
Source here.
What does MSPI contain, what goals does it set?
MSPI wants the European Union to take responsibility and become a genuine promoter of cultural and linguistic diversity across Europe. It wants the Copenhagen Criteria on protecting the rights of minorities to be observed also by the Member States of the EU.
Goals:
- Stop languages from becoming extinct in Europe
- Protection of minority cultures
- Language equality (use of the mother tongue in schools and public administration)
- Cross-border regional cooperation
- Free passage of audio-visual content
- Stop geo-blocking
- Rights for stateless minorities
Source here.
When, how did it start?
The story of Minority Safepack started at the FUEN Congress in Moscow in 2012, where the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ) took up the idea of engaging in a citizens’ initiative for the benefit of European minorities. The initiators (FUEN, YEN, SVP and RMDSZ) signed a cooperation agreement followed by a first discussion meeting in the European Parliament defining the objectives and agreeing on the need to collect 1 million signatures until the elections to the European Parliament in 2014.
In 2013, the initiative was submitted to the European Commission (EC), which rejected its registration in the same year. According to the Commission, the proposed initiative fell “manifestly outside the framework of the Commission’s powers”. In November 2013, the initiators challenged the EC’ s decision at the Court of Justice of the European Union. On February 3rd, 2017, the Court found the initiators were right, and annulled the EC’s previous decision of rejection. In April 2017, the EP registered the MSPI and gave one year to the initiators to collect the 1 million signatures.
Milestones
Presentation of the proposal
The Citizens’ Committee, the FUEN Presidium and experts presented their legislative proposals to the European Commission. The legislative proposals based on the nine points of the Minority SafePack European Citizens’ Initiative were presented to the European Commission. The MSPI delegation met Věra Jourová, (Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency, Responsible for the European Citizens’ Initiative system) and Mariya Gabriel, (European Commissioner Responsible for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth) and several representatives of the Secretariat General and Directorate General.
Source here
One million signatures in 11 countries reached
,320,000 statements of support were collected and the threshold was in 11 Member States (Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Latvia, Spain, Croatia, Denmark, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Lithuania, Italy). By May 8th, 2018, the Citizens’ Committee, FUEN and the local organizers handed over the signatures to the competent national authorities in all 28 EU Member States. 1.128.385 signatures had been validated.
(source: http://www.minority-safepack.eu/main/index)
Signature collection begins
The signature collection was officially announced at the FUEN Congress at the Bánffy Castle in Kolozsvár/Cluj-Napoca on May 17-21, 2017. The goal of the initiators was to start collecting signatures in as many EU member states as possible to show European support for the proposal. FUEN’s signature collection campaign focused primarily on regions with minority populations.
The General Court annulled the EC’s decision of rejection
At the beginning of 2017, the Court ultimately ruled in favour of the initiators, following which an agreement between the European Commission and the initiators was reached, making the launch of a signature collection possible. Concurrently, Romania entered the proceedings aiming to have the initiative dismissed by the Court, and supporting the Commission in its initial decision rejecting the ECI.
Source here: https://www.fuen.org/en/article/One-more-win-for-European-minorities-before-the-Court-of-Justice-of-the-EU
The EC rejected the MSPI
The European Commission refused to register the Minority SafePack citizens’ initiative. The refusing decision was made on the grounds that the scope of the initiative fell outside the EC’s competence and so the EC would not have the jurisdictional background to propose the adoption of a legal act (based on the initiative) in the European Union to be further implemented in the Treaties of the European Union. In its rejection the EC failed to mention the particular acts it had considered as falling outside its competence and also failed to elaborate on the parts it had considered potentially possible.
The beginning: FUEN Congress in Moscow
The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ) – the largest member organization of FUEN – decided to propose a citizens’ initiative for the benefit of European minorities. The proposal was to be presented together with FUEN, the South Tyrolean People’s Party (SVP) and the Youth of European Nationalities (YEN). MEP Gyula Winkler, Lóránt Vince (international secretary of RMDSZ) and Jan Diedrichsen (FUEN-director) together explained the status of the citizens’ initiative at the Moscow FUEN Congress. The initiators signed a cooperation agreement.
6. The proposal
The Minority SafePack Initiative includes eleven original proposals, nine of which were registered by the European Commission:
Proposals:
- EU-Recommendation for the protection and promotion of cultural and linguistic diversity
- Funding programmes to support small linguistic communities,
- The creation of a Language Diversity Centre
- The objectives of the EU’s Regional Development Funds to include the protection of national minorities and the promotion of cultural and linguistic diversity
- Research about the added value of minorities to our societies and Europe
- Approximating equality for stateless minorities e.g. the Roma
- A single European copyright law, so that services and broadcasts can be enjoyed in the mother tongue
- Freedom of service and of access to audio-visual content in minority regions
- Improve access to regional (state) support for minority culture, media and cultural heritage conservation.
Future plans
The MSPI public hearing at the European Parliament would have been held on March 23rd, 2020. Due to the coronavirus epidemic, the hearing was postponed to an unknown later date. Subsequently, the European Commission’s decision-making deadline was also extended by 6 months. Eventually, the hearing was held on 15th of October.
The role of FUEN
Member States apply different norms and different standards in the field of minority protection: some don’t recognize and disregard the aim of minorities, while others actively promote and protect them. FUEN (Federal Union of European Nationalities) believes that the situation of European minorities cannot be considered solely the internal affair of Member States. Their objective is to strengthen the Council of Europe’s legal instruments and sanction mechanism, while in the EU our goal is to create a legal framework for the protection of national minorities and language groups. The Minority SafePack Initiative, coordinated by FUEN, managed to become the fifth successful ECI, with 1,128,385 validated signatures and 11 EU Member States where the threshold was passed. The successful campaign increased FUEN’s visibility and established it as the flagship organisation in the field of minority protection. Source here