Move to put EU funding for minority languages on firm legal footing

Date: 04/02/1999

By Myles Neligan

Education Commissioner Edith Cresson will unveil a multi-million-euro initiative later this month designed to promote the use of indigenous European languages such as Breton, Basque and Cornish.

European Commission officials say the move is intended to put EU support for minority languages on a formal legal footing, in contrast to the present strategy of providing funds on a case-by-case basis.

Minority language schemes had their Union funding suspended last year when the European Court of Justice decided that expenditure which was not expressly approved by government ministers was illegal.

Cresson's initiative, entitled Archipelago, aims to channel up to €5 million a year for the next five years into national programmes designed to encourage the use of indigenous but now largely forgotten tongues. Priority would be given to teaching programmes, minority-language media outlets, and academic research into the origins of the EU's rarer dialects.

The precise sum of money to be made available is still under discussion, but there is a Commission agreement that the level of financial support should rise. "The final sum will represent a slight increase on current levels of funding," said one official.

Minority language groups have welcomed the move.

"We have been waiting for this for some time," said Christian Demeuré-Vallet of the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages. "It is a positive development, and we will be putting pressure on national authorities to sign up to it."

EU education ministers must approve Cresson's plan before it can be implemented, with initial discussions planned for May. Institution officials say that presenting Archipelago as an educational rather than a cultural initiative makes it more likely that governments will accept it, as many member states regard culture as an area of exclusively national competence.

Commission to launch the Archipelago initiative to provide EU support for minority languages.