July 2006

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PUBLICATION OF THE 2005 REPORT ON THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE EU

July & August 2006 - The Network of independent experts in fundamental rights of the EU has published their annual report for the year 2005. This is their fourth annual report where they analyse questions relating to the main areas of the protection of human rights including the protection of linguistic diversity.

In the section regarding the protection of the linguistic minorities they refer to six countries; Austria, Estonia, Slovenia, Spain, Poland and Lithuania. These are but some of the issues on the report:

- From Austria they express concerns about the climate of hostility against the Slovene minority of Carinthia, which has been exacerbated by attitude of the governor of Carinthia who has refused to implement the rulings of the Constitutional Court according certain rights to this group.

- Regarding Estonia, the Network regrets that the Administrative Division of the Supreme Court in its decision of 16 of June 2005 Loksa Town Council v Chessclub Olympic considered that the right to get answers in minority languages, enshrined in the Constitution, was linked to physical persons and did not create similar rights lo legal persons.

- In relation to Spain the Network’s report considers exemplary the use of Catalan in the Communication media and the education system.

The Net of experts does not have any competence in the application of measures to punish states for their actions against the rights set out in the European Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights. Their role is to inform and recommend measures to promote the safeguarding of fundamental rights.