The Citizens' Committee of the Minority ECI is now complete
Jannewietske de Vries, the president of the Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity (NPLD) joined as the seventh member the citizen’s commitee of the European Citizen’s Initiative founded by the RMDSZ (Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania), the FUEN (Federal Union of European Nationalities) and the SVP (South Tyrolean People's Party).
Jannewietske de Vries is a member of the provincial government of the Fryslân province in the Netherlands on behalf of the social-democrat party PvdA and member of the Governing Body of the cities of Friesland.
The Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity (NPLD) is a European wide network acting in the field of language policy and planning for Constitutional, Regional & Small-State Languages (CRSS) across Europe. NPLD includes Governments both national and regional, NGO’s, Universities and Associations. The Breton, Gallic, Corsican, Galician, Catalan, Frysian, Welsh, Estonian, Navarrese, Irish, Basque, Lithuanian, Swedish, Finnish, Cornish and the Sami regional and language minorities are only some of the 33 member organisations representated in the NPLD.
Thus, the citizen’s committee of the Minority European Citizen’s Initiative is now complete, having the following seven members: Hans Heinrich Hansen, the President of FUEN, Hunor Kelemen, the President of the Hungarians in Romania, Luis Durnwalder, the Governor of South Tyrol, Karl-Heinz Lambertz, the Minister-President of the Government of the German-speaking Community in Belgium, Anke Spoorendonk, the Minister for Justice, Culture and Europe of the Land of Schleswig-Holstein, Valentin Inzko, the High Representative of the United Nations to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Jannewietske de Vries, the president of the Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity.
The Citizen’s Committee is made up of one citizen from each of the seven following states: Romania, Italy, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. However, many linguistic or autochthonous national minorities and regional or language communities have already joined or intend to join the Minority European Citizen’s Initiative, in a united effort aiming to trigger EU legislation for the protection of national minorities.
On May 23rd In Cluj Napoca,Romania, the representatives of the Minority European Citizen’s Initiative will officially introduce to the public the citizen’s committee and the steps made so far.
