The subject of minorities in Western Europe is very different from that of Central or Eastern Europe. In the last thirty years, demands for autonomy or independence (in the Basque Country, Catalonia or Northern Ireland) led to violent conflicts. However, these cases are limited and solutions are currently being negotiated in accordance with the principles of Human Rights.

In Western Europe, it is first and foremost a linguistic and cultural matter. There have been many demonstrations of linguistic and cultural loyalty related to the use of minority languages in the European Union. The list of languages, though not exhaustive, includes the following: Basque, Breton, Catalan, Cornish, Corsican, Scotch, Faroese, Frisian, Galician, Welsh, Irish, Yiddish, Judeo-Spanish, Occitan, Romansh (with variants of Ladin and Frioulan), Romany, Sardinian, Sorbian.

This pre-eminence of the cultural aspect of this subject does not lessen the importance of the questions raised. At the sociological level, the endurance of this phenomenon is completely remarkable, as can be noted in countries like France which was built on the very ancient practice of linguistic uniformity. From a political standpoint, the debate thus opened is crucial for the evolution of the European society in search of a new balance between the regions, the impossibility of putting the importance of the nation-states into question and the dynamics of the supra-national union. Finally, these phenomena are universal: the safeguarding of languages threatened with extinction is a human ecological problem at the global level.

The sought-after solutions do not only concern minority groups. They contribute to designing the future face of Europe and should lead to a new system for managing a multicultural society.

The way these problems are approached today is very different from the sought-after solutions for the problems of minorities in Eastern and Central Europe. Western Europe is currently trying to implement a method of handling linguistic and cultural diversity without resorting to political fragmentation of the territories.

These new solutions should be based on the way Europe was perceived after the Second World War. Perception of the Europe of this end of the twentieth century is based on a double ideological rupture:

* A very general fact has assumed crucial importance in Western Europe. The attempt to treat minorities in accordance with the principles of the Society of Nations between the two World Wars ended in dramatic failure. The method adopted after the Second World War is radically different. It consists of treating minorities according to the notion of rights of "persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities" who are no longer treated in terms of collective rights but according to the principles of Human Rights. This inspired the Convention Europ_enne des Droits de l'Homme (CEDH 1950).

* This political evolution was accompanied by a fundamental cultural conception of Europe. Hegemonic attempts to impose one language on all Europeans permanently quashed the notion, which still existed between the two World Wars, that Europe needed a common language to be vital on the world scene. Since the end of the Second World War, Europe has been built on respect for the linguistic and cultural differences of its peoples and nations. Of course, the national and official languages of the countries must first be respected. However, this respect for cultural plurality cannot stop at the plurilingualism of the official languages of the countries: it is total linguistic and cultural diversity which should be progressively taken into account.

It took some thirty years to implement efficient legal instruments to protect minority rights in Europe. The steps taken reveal the importance of this cultural aspect. In spite of the interventions of the European parliament and the limited actions of the European Union bodies, the most important solutions for Western Europe were paradoxically developed within the framework of the Council of Europe. I will limit myself to this aspect which I consider essential.

At first, it was attempted to treat minorities according to the principles of Human Rights and the CEDH. This led to nothing constructive for Western Europe. In 1961, the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe proposed an additional protocol to the CEDH to recognize the right of minorities to "speak their own language, have their own schools and receive education in their language of choice". This proposition quickly met with insurmountable difficulties and after a long series of studies, the Ministers' Committee finally decided, in January 1996, to stop working on this additional protocol. In fact, "these efforts clashed with the theory of the universality of human rights according to which an individual right can be introduced only if this right is available to everyone, without exception. Therefore, minority rights should be apply only for certain people, that is, members of minorities"

The road to the treatment of cultural minorities will be more efficient. This dates back to the hearing of the linguistic minorities of the Arc alpin organized in 1982 by the Permanent Conference on Local and Regional Powers in Europe (PCLRPE) to prepare a European Charter of Minority Languages. Some ten years later, this led to the signing of the European Charter of Regional or Minority on November 5, 1992. It came into effect on March 1, 1998. To date, the Charter has been ratified by 8 countries: Finland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Hungary, the Netherlands, Croatia, Switzerland and Germany. It was signed by Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Iceland, Luxembourg, Malta, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Macedonia (the former Republic of Yugoslavia) and Ukraine.

It should be noted that, under pressure of the post-communist world evolution, the heads of state and of the governments of the Council of Europe, at the first Vienna summit (1993), reached a working agreement for the protection of national minorities which came into effect on February 1, 1998. This agreement which was important for Eastern and Central European countries was less so for the countries of Western Europe for the simple reason that the notion of "national minority" is not accepted by most of the countries of this area as an explanation for its linguistic and cultural diversity.

The European Charter of Regional or Minority Languages remains for Western Europe, the main document which inspires and encourages an increased acceptance of minority linguistic and cultural demands in many countries.

This Charter, created to protect and promote regional or minority language rights (and not those of the social groups which used them), allows for the studying of demands without putting the unity of the countries concerned into question. This allows for the opening of debates and negotiations which are more difficult to avoid by countries reluctant to recognize their linguistic and cultural diversity.

The debate which opened in France with the signing of the Charter is a very significant sign of this evolution. The simple fact that this debate took place at all is a sign of two essential facts:

* The problem of recognizing minority languages does not disappear by reducing their vitality in a country where tolerance is not enough to ensure the reproduction of minority linguistic practices. The necessity to build a multicultural society is not dependent on regional demands as was the case from 1960 to 1980. Economic internationalization modifies the perception of linguistic and cultural pluralism: immigrant populations are growing and contact with a plurality of languages and cultures is increasing globally.

* Second, it is no longer possible for a large European country to ignore the evolution of the European society. After Spain, after the United Kingdom, France felt the need to modernize its way of perceiving the necessity of increased regionalization. It is important to note that the political choice in favour of regional languages is not part of the political scene. It is a case of the opinion of the majority of the country, mainly left wing forces and including a significant part of centrist and liberal forces.

This case illustrates the efficiency of the Charter which expands on the rule of law in the case of respect for minority rights. From this perspective, the purpose of the law is to guarantee the realization of identity-related values in private and also in public. The rights of "minorities", such as the right to work and to form a union, to strike, are rights which are acquired through collective action, thus freedom. Futile and strong opposition to conflicts between collective and individual rights can be reduced. In future, by relying on the principles outlined in the Charter, it will be easier to take the following two steps to guarantee recognition of individual rights.

* The principles outlined in the Charter clearly show that the protection and promotion of minority languages and cultures will not be confined exclusively to the realms of the private sector, as is too often the case. It requires the creation of public institutions thoroughly compatible with the fundamental principles of Human Rights and the citizenship.

* The civil society and the NGO have an important task: to convince the public majority of the value of linguistic and cultural minorities. To achieve this, it would be essential to create a dynamic information policy. This would require a permanent commitment and would involve all citizens. It would also include the creation of organizations and cultural programs which would ensure the active participation of representatives of concerned groups and also build a network to acquire and broadcast information confirmed by the experts but also, and especially, by qualified representatives of the concerned groups.

The main problem in Europe today is understanding the value of diversity, passing from suspicious tolerance to a form of cultural interbreeding founded on complete autonomy of realities inherited from our history and energized by a circulation of culture which would grow exponentially.

Henri Giordan
Research Director, Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, France

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1. According to Ferdinando Albanese, former Director of the Environment and Local Powers of the Council of Europe "The Evolution of European Law in relation to Linguistic Rights" (L’_volution du Droit europ_en en mati_re de Droits linguistiques), New paper presented at the Colloque Pour la Libert_ des cultures, Toulon, March, 1999.