Protection of national minorities in the european community law
| Author | Henter Leda Andrea |
| Position | Master Student at International and European Community Law Faculty of law "Nicolae Titulescu " University Bucharest |
The main purpose of this paper is to offer an outlook on the linguistic landscape of present day in Romania and on the policies which deals with the protection of the linguistic rights of the national minorities, in accordance with the international legislation in this field . The main reason for choosing this topic are the following:
( 1 ). Nowadays , Romania is facing challenges coming from its multicultural milieu offering a various linguistic situations which can be commented in terms of language policy . Although the national minorities represent approximately 10% of the entire population of Romania , their linguistic diversity and their territorial distribution as well increase specific and particular problems which remains to be solved . On the territory of Romania live 18 officially recognized national minorities: Albanians ( in several cities like Constanta, Craiova, Giurgiu, Ploiesti, Cluj- Napoca, Sibiu, Slatina etc.), Armenians (especially in Constanta county ), Bulgarians ( in Arad, Timis, Suceava county ), Czechs ( Caras-Severin and Mehedinti counties ), Germans ( 14 counties in Transylvania ), Greeks ( Constanta and Tulcea counties ), Hungarians ( 16 counties in Transylvania and Bacau county), Italians (Tulcea county ), Jews , Lipovan-Russians ( Braila, Tulcea and Suceava counties ), Poles ( Suceava county ), Roma ( Gypsies ), Serbs ( Arad, Timis, Caras-Severin counties ), Slovaks ( in Timis Arad, Bihor, Salaj, counties ), Tartars ( Constanta county ), Turks ( Constanta county ), Ukrainians ( Suceava, Botosani and Tulcea counties ).1
The Hungarians, most important national minority in Romania2 , account around 7,1% of the entire population, being concentrated in two countries in Transylvania, Harghita and Covasna , where they represent 75,2%, respectively 84,7% of the population in the area. Today the percentage is estimated to be higher, as well as for the Roma population who are estimated to count around 1 500 000 persons.3 As Szilagyi Sandor4 estimates, a significant proportion 27% of the ethnic Hungarians of Romania live in localities where they represent between 91-100% of the population in this area .In 1992 , the ethnic Hungarians from Transylvania counties represented 23,9% of the population, comparatively to 25,2% or 31,6%5 . It is estimated as well that until the end of 2010 the Hungarian minority will be far exceed in number by the Roma population , and, therefore this minority will be able to reach being the first important minority on the territory of Romania , which could produce difficulties for Romania because of the main problems that has to be faced by this minority as; social and economical integration among the rest of the population , the daily discrimination, and the prejudice coming from the rest of romanian population .
( 2 ). The second reason for choosing this topic has to be connected with the progresses made by Romania, in the last 5-6 years, in the field of language, educational and cultural policies dealing with national minority problems and matters, especially on the conditions and terms stipulated by the desire of Romania to accede in the European Union .After decades of totalitarianism, which promoted aggressive assimilation and nationalistic policies of their identity and mother tongue Romania , as many other former communist states, is engaged in a process of improving the protection of the linguistic rights of the national minorities, but there is more to be done in this area .
Since several definitions of the expression "national minority" are used, it is important to specify the exact meaning which can be found within the conceptual framework. This definition is given by Recommendation 1201of Parliamentary Assembly of the CoE ( 1993, Sec.I, Art. 1 ): "group of persons in a state ho reside on the territory of that state and are citizens thereof; are motivated by a concern to preserve together that which constitute their common identity, including their culture, their traditions, their religion or their language".
The phrase" language community" is used with the meaning which can be found in the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights ( Barcelona, 1996, Preliminary Title, Art.1.1 )as: "any human society established historically in a particular territorial space , whether this space be recognized or not, which identifies itself as a people and has developed a common language as a natural means of communication and cultural cohesion between its members ".
The term " territorial space "is used not only as a geographical area, but also as " a social and functional space vital to the full development of the language ".( Art.1.2 ). The same definition of a language community is confer also to nomad peoples within their historical areas of migration or to peoples historically established in dispersed locations ( Art. 1.4 ).The distinction between " language communities " and " language groups" it is also used in the spirit of the above mentioned Declaration, groups of immigrants, refugees, deported persons, members of diasporas, who do not possess historical antecedents equivalent to those of the host language community ( Art.1.5 ) . As regards of the concept of ethnolinguistic consciousness of speaker, studied by Fishman Joshua A.6 in 1997, I totally agree that we can not equate language and ethnicity, since the individual ethnicity, since one person can have several mother tongues, as well as plural cultural options . In Romania is the case of people, bilinguals coming from mixed marriages, such as Hungarians-Romanian, Hungarian-German, Hungarian-Jew, etc .
The terms "regional or minority languages ", so as " non-territorial languages " are to be connected to the concept of "language community ", whose linguistic rights are individual and collective at the same time . As The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (1992 ) defines it in ( Part I, Art. 1 ), "regional or minority languages " are languages traditionally used within a given territory of a State by nationals of that State who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the State's population, languages different from the official language(s) of that State, from the dialects of the official language(s) of that State, from the languages of the migrants .
"Non-territorial languages " are languages used by nationals of the State which are different from the language(s) used by the rest of the State's population, but which, although are traditionally used within the territory of that State and can't be identified with a particular area .
In Romania , the national minorities speak several regional languages, and two non- territorial languages ( Romany, Yiddish ). The status of these languages in term of linguistic geography is quite diverse . Most of them correspond to majority languages spoken in the states situated in the immediate vicinity of Romania ( Bulgarian, Hungarian, Serbian, Ukrainian ), in the Balkan area ( Croatian,Greek, Slovenian,Turkish, Tartar ), or in territories which are not in direct linguistic contact with the Romanian language ( Armenian, Czech, Italian, Polish, Slovak ). Other idioms are dialects historically related to a language ef origin: it is the case of Swabian (Schwabish ) and Transylvanian Saxon ( Sachsisch ) which must be related to German standard language; a comparable situation have the Carashovenian and who speak the standard Croatian, the...
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