Responsibility of the Commission for protecting minorities

Subject: Responsibility of the Commission for protecting minorities

Minorities contribute in a special way to peaceful coexistence in our society and to the cultural and linguistic diversity of Europe. Minorities policy should be accorded special importance.

The work of minority associations aims to develop an institutionally-grounded responsibility for minority politics at European level. This includes the European Citizens' Initiative ‘Minority SafePack’, which has attracted far more than the required 1 million signatures and the Commission will therefore address this topic. One of the demands is to establish binding responsibility for minority affairs at Union level and to include all matters relating to the protection and rights of minorities in the EU within the remit of a Commissioner.

1. Does the Commission have any plans to include responsibility for the protection and rights of minorities in the remit of a Commissioner?

2. If not, what measures is the Commission planning to organise the enforcement of minority rights in some other way?

Answer given by Ms Jourová on behalf of the European Commission

(7 November 2019)

Respect for the rights of persons belonging to minorities is one of the founding values of the European Union and is a principle explicitly mentioned in the Treaty on European Union.

The EU is already equipped with specific instruments (1) to ensure that, within the remit of its competences, discrimination against minorities based on specific grounds such as ethnicity or race, is prohibited.

Beyond the existing European legislation on combatting discrimination, racism and xenophobia, the EU’s competence is limited in respect to minorities, in particular as regards issues concerning the recognition of the status of minorities, their eventual autonomy or the regime governing the use of regional or minority languages.

In these cases, Member States retain general powers to take decisions, as according to Article 51(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the provisions of the Charter are only addressed to the Member States when they are implementing EC law. It is thus for Member States to ensure compliance with their constitutional order and their obligations under international law, if any.

The current Commission is not in a position to comment or answer questions related to the organisation and attribution of responsibilities of the next Commission. The Honourable Member is invited to address those questions to the next Commission once it takes office.

⋅1∙ The Employment Equality Directive, the Racial Equality Directive and the framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia aim specifically at combating

several forms of intolerance. Moreover, the Commission has set up in place other policy instruments, such as the list of actions to advance LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) equality or the EU Framework for national Roma integration strategies.