Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-16-Speech-4-156"
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"en.20000316.3.4-156"2
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"I want to explain the reasons underlying my rejection of the annual report on respect for human rights in the European Union. Two of the provisions in that text call on a number of countries, including France, to ratify the European Framework Convention for the protection of national minorities and the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages without delay.
For the same reasons, I abstained on the report on the fight against racism and xenophobia in the European Union.
First of all, I really must dispel a misunderstanding that is tainting the whole debate about regional languages; the purpose is certainly not to forbid whomsoever it be from speaking, teaching or promoting a minority or regional language of whatever kind. Insofar as learning or using these languages remains a personal choice, I, for my part, am in favour of any measure to promote their conservation and transmission, since they form part of the cultural heritage of the nations.
I have voted against the Haarder report because, in calling for the ratification of the European Framework Convention for the protection of national minorities and the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, it is seeking to promote a concept of European integration that is based on a vision to which I cannot subscribe. According to that concept, the individual has particular rights based on his membership of a territorial, ethnic or religious entity, while the community constitutes the key means of mediating between the individual and the right he is claiming.
Whilst, at first sight, recognition of the community may seem a factor that protects the integration of minorities, in fact, however, it is a strong factor of social segregation and regression (you need only think of the situation of young Turkish or Maghreb girls, who are excluded from the emancipating benefits of ethnically mixed schooling, who are held back by archaic rules on the status of women).
Similarly, while recognition of a special status for these communities may seem to protect the weakest and most destitute, on the contrary, it in fact produces a social compartmentalisation which the triumphant march of liberalism can turn to its advantage.
Moreover, while it is true that enlargement of the European Union means we must take account of the special situation of certain national minorities, nonetheless the community-based solution offers no future prospects whatsoever for population groups who are under threat or oppressed. On the contrary, recent history has shown how the exacerbation of the sense of belonging to a particular community can trigger the resurgence of ancient ethnic disputes and lead to fratricidal conflicts.
Rather than this concept, I prefer the universalist vision of a republican Europe in which each individual as such fully and actively exercises his rights and freedoms. I prefer a Europe which offers a chance of integration to all those who subscribe to its common values, whether they proclaim their religious identity or practise no religion, whether they speak the language of their ancestors or have chosen to transcend their roots.
That Europe affirms the primacy of a principle not found in the Haarder report, the secular principle, which contains and synthesises all the other freedoms: right to respect for private life, freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of expression and association.
The Republic of Europe remains to be built: let us hope that the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is still at the drafting stage, will constitute the first act and the cornerstone of that Europe."@en1
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