Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-10-Speech-3-083"
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"en.20071010.17.3-083"2
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"There is a large group of citizens who have been ignored in the discussion on the composition of the European Parliament. I am thinking of the almost 50 million Europeans who belong to a regional or a national linguistic minority. Today we are only a handful of MEPs who represent these groups. This is not acceptable and, sadly, it gives a false image of the European Parliament. It is as if we do not understand the vulnerable position in which certain linguistic minorities still live. The report by Mr Lamassoure and Mr Severin, which is based on the principle of ‘degressive proportionality’, is a brilliant display of statistical work and I too will be voting in favour of it, but we must now also dare to begin discussing other substantive issues. How will we increase the citizens’ trust in the European Union? How will we guarantee that the EU and the European Parliament live up to the aims that we want others to pursue, that is to say how will we ensure that the voices of minorities are also heard?
Ladies and gentlemen, will we MEPs tolerate regional and national linguistic minorities being left at the mercy of the goodwill of national governments which may give them a seat, or do we want those minorities not to be represented in the European Parliament? The answer should be a resounding no! So as to ensure diversity it is therefore time to reserve a number of seats in the European Parliament for linguistic minorities. I myself speak for the Swedish-speaking population of Finland and for the province of Åland."@en1
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