Minority SafePack European Citizens’ Initiative
The ‘Minority SafePack – One million signatures for a diverse Europe’ is a European citizens’ initiative for the protection of minorities, which was launched in the European Union – using the tool of direct democracy – by the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) on the basis of a proposal by the Hungarian Democratic Alliance of Romania (RMDSZ), the South Tyrol People’s Party (SVP) and the Youth of European Nationalities (YEN).
On 16 July 2013 the initiators submitted the Minority SafePack European Citizens’ Initiative to the European Commission, calling on the Commission to adopt legislation to improve the protection of persons belonging to national or linguistic minorities and to strengthen the cultural and linguistic diversity of the EU, in line with the motto of European integration, ‘United in Diversity’.
The Commission has refused to register the initiative on the grounds that it falls outside the EU’s competence. After a lengthy legal debate the European Court of Justice partially registered the initiative in its judgment in case T-391/17 “Romania v European Commission”. According to the court’s reasoning, the proposals aim to ensure respect for minorities, an explicit EU value, and to promote cultural and linguistic diversity, an EU objective. The European Commission subsequently registered the Minority SafePack European Citizens’ Initiative on 3 April 2017. A petition was launched on 20 May 2017 and it was run until 3 April 2018. During the verification process, a total of 1 128 422 signatures were verified from 11 Member States (Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain) instead of the 1 million signatures from 7 Member States required for validation.
The European Commission registered the statements of support on 10 January 2020. The legislative proposals based on the Minority SafePack European Citizens’ Initiative were presented to the European Commission on 5 February 2020. In the European Parliament a public hearing was held on 15 October 2020. The European Parliament debated and supported the Minority SafePack European Citizens’ Initiative at its plenary session on 14 December 2020 and invited the Commission to propose legislation. The Minority SafePack European Citizens’ Initiative contains legislative proposals in nine areas (e.g. effective language, education and cultural policies; the creation of a European Centre for Linguistic Diversity; adapting cohesion policies; assessing the added value of minorities for social and economic development; addressing inequalities in the situation of stateless minorities; improving cross-border access to audio-visual services and content; amending EU funding programmes to support cultural and linguistic diversity). The Minority SafePack European Citizens’ Initiative affects 50 million EU citizens belonging to a national minority or linguistic group.
On 15 January 2021 the Commission responded to the Minority SafePack European Citizens’ Initiative in a Communication (C (2021) 171 final) stating that it does not consider it necessary to adopt further legislation, as existing legal instruments and policies are sufficient to achieve the objectives of the initiative. (See also: European Citizens’ Initiative, European Citizens’ Initiative on National Regions.)