August 2005

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RESOLUTION OF THE SEMINAR CULTURES IN DIALOGUE AS REGARDS MINORITIES IN EUROPE

August 2005 – From July 17th - 30th 2005 the seminar Cultures in Dialogue which took place in the border area of Denmark and Germany hosted 180 young Europeans. These youngsters were representing all kinds of European national, cultural and linguistic belongings. The work carried out in Cultures in Dialogue has addressed how to give recognition and how to safeguard the cultures and languages of national minorities in Europe.

After almost two weeks of work participants’ negotiations resulted in a joint Resolution aimed at improving the situation of minorities and the relations between minorities and majorities in Europe. The Resolution was released on July 28th at Flensborghus in Flensburg (Germany). It is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, the Framework Convention for Protection of National Minorities, the Charter on European Regional or Minority Languages, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the Council of Europe Recommendation 1201. The Resolution consists of 29 articles divided in four chapters. To begin with, chapter I defines the term minority. Chapter II sets down a number of rights minorities should have, while Chapter III establishes certain obligations. Finally chapter IV consists of six recommendations aimed at enforcing legal framework on minority issues.

The Cultures in Dialogue seminar was carried out on 3 independent schools in the Danish-German border region on both sides of the border as a part of the commemoration events of the 50th anniversary of the Copenhagen-Bonn Declarations agreed on by the Danish and German governments in 1955 with the aim of securing rights of the minorities in the Danish-German border region. These Declarations have been important sources for the development of peaceful co-existence among minority and majority population-groups in the region and an excellent example of how to promote understanding and tolerance between minority and majority population-groups.