Right to Petition as a tool to promote the interests of persons belonging to national minorities in the European Union
Since the entry into force of the Treaty of Maastricht, every EU citizen and all natural or legal residents of the Member States have had the right to submit a petition to the European Parliament, in the form of a complaint or a request on an issue that falls within the European Union’s fields of activity. Petitions are examined by Parliament’s Committee on Petitions (PETI), which takes a decision on their admissibility and is responsible for dealing with them. The objective of this legal tool is to facilitate the ability of European citizens and individuals with permanent residence within the Union’s territory to address their grievances and requests for action to the institutions of the Union. In accordance with the admissibility criteria, the person submitting the petition must be directly affected, and the case must fall within the activities of the EU. However, PETI interprets both conditions broadly: only purely national issues are deemed inadmissible. PETI has proven receptive to cases related to minority concerns in recent years, thus the right to petition has become an important tool for asserting the rights and interests of national minorities in the EU. In the recent period, petitions have been submitted by EU citizens concerning the Beneš Decrees, bilingual railway signage in Slovakia, the Slovak State Language Act, environmental pollution affecting the Hungarian minority in Slovakia, property restitution in Romania, and the use of minority languages in Romania. The prioritization of Hungarian issues was facilitated by the fact that during the 2014-2019 term of the European Parliament, Hungarian MEP from Slovakia, Pál Csáky was the Vice-Chairman of PETI, and during the 2019-2024 term, Hungarian MEP from Romania, Loránt Vincze held the same position.