” How can professionalism protect the media against the outside pressures?â?? â??What can the journalists do to improve the ethical standards, especially during periods of social conflicts?â?? â??What is the role of journalistsâ?? unions and associations and of the editorial corporations?â?? â??What formative, editorial and engagement standards are still missing?â?? These are part of the questions, to which the participants tried to find some answers during the roundtable discussion on â??The Freedom of Expression and the Danger of Intolerance in Mass-Mediaâ??
The discussion was opened by Maria Koreck, program director at PER Regional Center, who underlined the fact that the press has the capacity to form the imagination of the media consumer through how it reflects different aspects of reality. Thus iti?1 always played an imprtant role in forming social realities, especially those between different etnic communities. The PER Regional Center has the intention to offer a neutral frame in which the different opinions regarding reglementing or self-reglementing freedom of expression in order to eliminat and prevent the intolerance present in mass media.
Attila Szasz, member of the National Audiovisual Council, sustaigned the idea that freedom of expression is in danger and it has to be protected from intolerance and rasism. Freedom of expression means also assuming responsability, he said.
The president of the Council for Combating Discrimination, Csaba Asztalos, said that his institution is responsible for the protecting respect for human dignity and the freedom of expression and they try to maintain a balance between respecting these two rights. But promoting intolerance through media can not be tolerated under the cover of freedom of expression.

Mariana Nitelea, the director of CoE Information Office in Bucharest, promoted the “STOP Discrimination Campaign” that will elaborate a best practices manual for journalists and also the hard-core and soft-core CoE laws that are meant to guide journalists in order to avoid abusing freedom of expression.
The presentations regarding the legislative limits of tolerance regarding intolerance were followed by a monitoring report made by Diverse Association that analyzed the image of Roma in the written press from Romania during February 1 and Marc 31, 2009. From the analyzed data resulted that from the total articles in February 74,28% were objective towards Roma and 25,72% were subjective. However 60% from the toal articles present Roma in the contexti?1 of conflictual events and from these articles in 38,09% Roma are the target of other actors’ agressions and in 61,91% they are the agressors. Only 8,57% from all the articles associate Roma with pozitiv actions, 57,14% presenting them as the protagonists of negative activities. In March for all articles 60,94% were objective and 39,06% subjective towards Roma. The analysis followed also the report between articles that use for naming the community the word Roma, 54,28 % from all articles and those using the word Gipsy, 42,86 % from all articles. The conclusion is that articles written in an objective way are not altered by using the word Gipsy.i?1 However, subjectivity can be introduced into articles using the word Gipsy, for ex. in criminal cases, when accused persons are presented as Gipsy.

Ioana Avadani, executive director of the center for Independent Journalism and Adrian Voinea, vice-president of the Romanian Press Club, said that journalists already work on professional ethical code that will reflect the best practices and will be obligatory for those journalists who will assume it and has to have a role of statement against all the journalists who do not respect it. MS. Avadani said that media through its nature can not educate, but it presents models and a balance between the negative and positive models presented has to be maintained in order to eliminate stereotypes from the media where journalists still can not clarify their own prejudices. Assuming responsibility in media is a long and difficult process, but it is worth the effort.
Participants representing Roma organizations underlined the gravity of mentioning the ethnicity of a supposed perpetuator and not respecting the presumption of not being guilty in cases when media presents criminal events.
The conclusion of the discussion was that media has one part of guilt in the existence of intolerance in society and there is a need that media makes self regulating efforts in this regard. There is a need for a continuous forum where different actors from the media and from outside it can contribute together to the freedom of expression’s protection without letting them touch other rights.

Gabriella PA!sztor

State Secretary
Ministry of Education and Research

Foreward, Gabriella PA!sztor, State Secretary, Ministry of Education and Research

Chapter III equality of chances in education through teachers training and educational policies, Maria Koreck, Program Manager, PER Regional Center

Coordinator: Koreck Maria

After 20 years (introduction)
The experience gained during almost two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall
shows that the transition from Communism to a democratic system with a free
market economy is a process not quite easily manageable. This is due to numerous
and complex reasons, one of them being the degree of ethic heterogeneity. Many
authors who are supporting this thesis suggest that the pace of the reforms in
some of the post Communist societies in Central and Eastern Europe has been
slower than the expected during the enthusiastic ending of 1989; this being
mainly due to a rather higher proportion of ethnical minorities. One of their
arguments holds that ethnical cleavage allows some political actors to shift public
attention from social, economic and political reforms related debates (indeed
necessary but not rewarding electorally speaking) to debates regarding the rights
of the ethnical minorities (BÄfdescu AYi Kivu, 2005).

Please find bellow the research, the text in English follows the text in Romanian.

4×4:Management models in Multiethnic Communities

Introduction to the History of National Minorities from Romania

The interethnical disturbances can be caused on many occasions by a simple lack of knowledge of the â??otherâ??. The History of the National Minorities from Romania is a guidbook designated firstly to History teachers and with the aim of eliminating this lack of knowldege by offering information on national minorities from Romania, looking to strenghten the respect for diversity in the complex reality context of nowadays society represented by co-existance of different ethical and religious identities.

Romania is not the only country where the lack of information on minority or majority comunities is the result of the formal educational system whose curriculum ignores or rejects the experience of the national minorites from a certain country. This problem can be better highlited and followed in the history curriculum and has a double effect. First of all, the minorities feel their entire identity, culture, language, history and the sense of their existance in that country are undermined. This way members of the minority comunity can be demotivated to study subjects they cannot reffer to and the education undermining this way the identity is rarely efficient. Secondly, the members of the majority loose the oportunity to learn about members of other communities. The formal system though, if wisely prepared and implemented, can help to remove the obstacle of ignorance and missunderstanding between different communities. The political will to modify the legislation and provide resources for this objective needs to be associated with modifications within the educational system in order to provide sustainable development on long term and Romania does constantly such steps.

The introduction of this document in the formal education is a result of the Education Minister Order from 2007 which stipulates the introduction of an optional course on History of National Minorities, mainly designated to majority children from Romania. The Order is the result of a cooperation between specialists from governmental and non-governmental institutions initiated by the Project on Ethnic Relations Regional Centre. The curriculum of the optional course was recently adopted by the specialty comission within MERY and aproved through Ministry Order. This gives hopes that, starting with school year 2009-2010, in as many schools as possible from all over the country for 10^th grade students, the study of history of communities living on this teritory and contributing over the years to the country development will beginn. We are talking here about the communities dwelling on this teritory, due to historical events, even before the existance of the unitary national state.

In order to survive, the national minorities need to permanently look for obtaining equal rights with the ones of the majority, but also the right to keep and develop their specific culture, as the majority is keeping and developing its own one. Thus, the national minorities need not only equal rights but also the acceptance of their diversity, their right to be different. Knowledge of the common history of all those living for century on the actual teritory of Romania can provide this aspect. We hope this material will became an useful instrument serving this purpose in the hands of the History teachers.

In the name of the Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) for Central, East and South â??East Europe I want to express our gratitude towards the co-authors of this document, who dedicated time and energy for the project. All of them participated in a pioneering project in the field as we have no knowledge of such documents bringing under one umbrella the History of 19 national minorities in one single country from Europe.

The purpose was to gather as many information as possible on History of national minorities from Romania, their presentation focusing on everything those different ethnical communities lived together on the actual teritory of Romanian and all they contributed to the development of the Romanian country and nation.

This approach prooved though to be a difficult one as minorities see their history as an element of the national identity specific to each of them, in the same way the majority understands sometimes its own history as part of the identity and by studying history cultivates the maintanance of the national identity. The presentation of ones own community, part of which this history is, history lived in fact by the community, prooved very different from the presentation needed by the same history in front of the majority with the purpose of providing information leading to understanding diversity, including the historical one of the different ethnicities.

The authors had to overcome also severe restrictions of length, as they had only few pages available to present the history of many centuries to a generatin knowing almost nothing about specific aspects of national minorities. Also, the authors had to select information in corcondance with the â??historical truthâ??, the responsabiltiy of supporting their position in their written materials belonging to each of them.

Our gratitude goes also to the coordination team of this document, team which, together with the co-authors, struggled to reach the best shape and the most important references so that materials are presented in a unitary concept, avoiding to just get a collection of individual texts on the history of each minority. They had also the role to moderate authors discussions during the creation of the material and to integrate the parts of the texts in different chapters.

What is going now in the hands of the History teachers wants to be an auxiliar material composed by a written text and a DVD with sources and recommended methodology for teaching the history of national minorities from Romania as an optional course but also as part of the national curriculum of history which already contains some elements on history of national minorities. The document is composed by the following chapters:

1. The origin and settlement on the actual teritory of Romania (including the causes of their departure from country origin, what was gained and what was lost as a result of this departure, the first certification of the minority on the actual teritory of Romania, demographic situation in evolution up to nowadays).

2. Identity elements of the national minorities (including the language, denominations, internal organization of the community, habitat, family, childhood, roles/status of age and gender, family common law, calendar celebrations, traditional costume, ocupations, religion, symbols, values, believes, national symbols, culture and education institutions, organizations, monuments and commemoration days/laic celebrations).

3. The history of the national minorities and evolution of the relations with other communities.

4. The contribution of the national minorities to the commune patrimony (contribution of the minority as a whole, model personalities or destinies, institutions, best practice exemples for good cooperation between minorities/personalities belonging to different minorities).

5. Perception of each other in the colective imaginary (positive, negative and neutral- our perceptions on the other, self-perception, perceptions of the other on us- in folklore, literature, design, visual arts, media).

The number 5 from the above plan represents somehow the educative target of this document, respectively shaping the mutual perceptions from colective imaginary based on adequate knowledge generator of good understanding and mutual tolerance.

The DVD annexed to the guidbook contains methodological elements, the text of the printed material, an electronic list of usefull links and sources (quoted from archive documents or published documents, images/pictures, drawings) meant to be used by the teachers while working with their students, helping students to make judgements based on sources. The guidbook can be downloaded from the PER Regional Centers webpage www.per.org.ro.

Certainly, some aspects presented by the authors based on the annexed bibliografy will rise the interest of the history teachers and we hope will open future debate on this document, but also on general aspects of national minorities history and their importance for the commune history of Romania and Europe. We hope that, following the debates research in the filed will produce other documents which can appear in a new improved edition.

The last but not the least, we want to thank to the Romanian Government who through Ministry of Education, Research and Youth and through Department for Internetnic Relations supported this project for two years, and also for addopting a package of Minister Orders by MERY which will sustain inside the educational system from Romania the constant promotion of knowing and accepting diversity.

We invite the History teachers to offer their students the optional course on History of the National Minorities from Romania helped by this auxiliary material and to participate in the workshops organized by us togehter with MERY to discuss the efficient usage of this instrument.

Koreck Maria

Istoria minoritÄfALilor naALionale ale din RomAcnia

PER believes that such a dialogue contributes to charting mutually accepted policies    aiming to develop a better understanding of the neighborhood policy and produces immediate and tangible results that benefit all countries and communities. Moldova aims to join the family of European nations in a Europe of the 21st century, more and more open in showing respect toward the cultural identity of all nations.
1.2.   The next activity under this program was the round table on â??Mediaâ??s Role in Covering Interethnic Relations in the Black Sea Regionâ??. The meeting was held in Bucharest on May 21, 2007 and brought together journalists from Turkey, Bulgaria, Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine, Russia and Romania and focused on: the presence of interethnic issues in the media of Black Sea Region countries; the role that media playes when covering interethnic issues in the Black Sea Region; Identifying good practices or even negative examples of reporting on ethnic issues; practical stepsthat can be taken to develop regional cooperation amoung journalists covering interethnic issues.

The moderator concluded by saying, that â?? possibly contrary to appearances â?? the region is not a mess: Asia and Africa are full of countries that would be delighted to be in the situation the Black Sea Region is in. â?oWe are a success story â?? he said â?? even if we seem to be working hard to refuse to recognize that.â??
Closing the seminar, PER Chairperson said that she had â?oreally appreciated the refreshing honesty and   openness of the entire group.â?? She also pledged continuing PER support to initiatives engendered by the seminar.
1.3 The last event that will be organized under this program in 2007 is the round table â?oNew Approaches to the Minorities Issue in the European Unionâ??, to be held in Brussels on December 4, with the support of the European Parliament.
The agenda will include the following topics:
-Â Â Â Minorities in and Enlarged EU: the Challenge of `Traditional` and `New` Minorities;
-Â Â Â Towards an Internal EU Minority Protection Policy:
-Â Â Â Minority Policy and the EU Institutional Architecture;
-Â Â Â Minority Policy in the Multi-Level EU System of Governance.
2.   Regional stability and the interethnic relations in Southeast Europe. (Regional conference)
The conference was organized in Belgrade, on October 1, 2007. The draft agenda includes the following issues:
-   The current state of minority councils in Serbia. Are the councils capable of acting on their competencies and are they financed sufficiently? What are the hopes and expectations of minorities with regard to the councils? What is the relationship between the councils and Serbiaâ??s government and parliament? What are relations among Serbiaâ??s minority councils? Do the councils favor joint action or do they prefer to act separately? What do the councils need in terms of additional help (finances, authority, expertise, institutional help, etc.)?
-Â Â Â Majority-minority relations and minority politics: experience of Serbiaâ??s neighbors.
-Â Â Â Key issues that need to be resolved to assure effective functioning of the councils and election of new councils.
-Â Â Â Review of drafts of legislation for re-election of councils of national minorities: procedures and mechanisms.
A group of Serbiaâ??s minority leaders and senior parliamentarians, and experts who worked in drafting the law, attended the meeting.

3.   The Roma in the XXI century. Strategies for integrating the Roma communities. The impact of new discrimination and racism forms. (International conference, local debates)

3.1. The first activity under this program was organized In Sinaia, Romania, on June 9-11, 2007, with the support of OSCE-ODIHR and brought together Roma academics and scholars in order to:
-Â Â Â Discuss basic concepts of Roma integration policies and define common guiding principles for these policies.
-Â Â Â Analyze if these policies reflect the Romaâ??s own expectations and aspirations and how do they serve Romani interest(s).
-Â Â Â Define what measurable results should these integration policies produce for Roma
-Â Â Â Define the role that different Roma leaders – academics, scholars, activists, elected or appointed state politicians – have in drafting, implementing and monitoring Roma integration policies.
-Â Â Â Set future priorities

3.2. The following activity will be organized in October 2007, in cooperation with Rromani CRISS and OSCE-ODIHR and consists in a field trip in Romanian localities where conflictual situations occured in the past (in the 90â?? and in the recent past â?? Apalina and Floresti). The field trip will be concluded with a round table in Bucharest, where high level officials from the Ministries of Interior and Administration, Justice and National Agency for Roma as well as representatives of the civil society and experts, will evaluate the stage of solving the above mentioned conflicts.

4.   Consolidating the interethnic tolerance in and through media. Trainings and documentation visits.
This is a program developed by PER Regional Center starting with 1996.
In July 2007, a documenting visit was organized in Suceava County, region better known as Bucovina. 10 journalists from national daylies, TV stations and from local media attended the visit. The journalists had the opportunity to visit communities of: Ukrainians, Polish, Lipovans, Armenians, Roma, to talk with minoritiesâ?? representatives and with local authorities.
The journalists appreciated that we have something to learn from each minority, from minoritiesâ?? specific traditions and history and that we should help the minority communities to preserve their cultural identity, because itâ??s valuable for the Romanian society as a whole.

5.   The management of interethnic relations in education. Trainings for Roma and non-Roma teachers, school inspectors and directors.
In 2007, the training was held on March 22-26, in Sovata, Romania in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Research (MEC)
PER Regional Center, together with other NGOs, had also a significant contribution in offering consultancy and lobbying at MEC for forbiding the segregation in schools. The result of this effort was Ministerâ??s Order for forbiding the segregation in schools. The order is valid and will be applied starting with this school year and includes the implementation methodology as well.

6.   The role of research and teaching history on interethnic relations. (workshops, editing materials, training).
This program was initiated by PER in 1997, it was not finalized in that period due to the political context. PER Regional Center starting to work again on the issue of introducing minoritiesâ?? history into the history textbooks starting with 2006.
In 2007 the Center organized three wokshops:
-   On February 26, in Buchrest, in partnership with the Information Office of the Council of Europe. The purpose of the meeting was to establish the steps to be made for fulfilling the goal of this program.
-   On March 30, in Bucharest, in cooperation with the Department for Interethnic Relations. The workshop brought together scholars and minoritiesâ?? historians, in order to establishe the principles of elaborating an auxiliary teaching material on minorities history, to be teached in schools, before the curricula will be changed and will include national minoritesâ?? history in the history curricula.
-   On August 29-September 1, in cooperation with the Department for Interethnic Relations.  The debate was ment to debate: the new opportunities for teaching national minoritiesâ?? history , after the adoption of the Ministerâ??s of Education Order No. 1529/18.07.2007 regarding the development of the diversity concept through the national curricula; revising the proposals of the working group regarding the auxiliary teaching material; proposals for integrating the auxiliary teaching material into the future history curricula.
One of the most important steps made by the Center in 2007 was the adoption of the above mentioned Ministerâ??s Order. The draft proposal for this order was elaborated by the Center and the adoption was strongly supported by PER Regional Center.

7.   Diversity â?? O Chance for the Future. National campaign for Promoting Awareness and Accepting Diversity.
The campaign is developed in 2007 and has as partners:
-Â Â Â Ministry of Education and Research;
-Â Â Â National Council for Combating Discrimination;
-Â Â Â Department for Interethnic Relations, Romanian Government
-Â Â Â National Agency for Roma, Romanan Government
-Â Â Â Information Office of the Council of Europe
-Â Â Â National Agency for Equal Chances, Romanian Government.
-Â Â Â Radio Romania
-Â Â Â Balkan Media Investigation Agency
-Â Â Â Press Monitoring Agency
-Â Â Â Freedom House.
The program consists in:
-Â Â Â National contest for promoting awareness and accepting diversity (for secondary and high schools);
-Â Â Â National contest of esseys for students.
-Â Â Â Media and Internet canpaign

8.   Police role in ensuring interethnic relationsâ?? stability.

On May 3, 2007 PER Regional Center in cooperation with the Committee for Human Rights, Cults and National Minoritiesâ?? Issues, Romanian Parliament, held a meeting at the Romanian Parliament on â??Police Role in Ensuring Interethnic Relationsâ?? Stabilityâ??.

The main goal of the meeting was to analyze the methods of police interventation in case of conflict situations that occure in multiethnic communities on local level and to identify the prevention strategies and methods, which should replace force intervention and tranform the police in a promotor of interthnic relationsâ?? stability.

The meeting was attended by representatives of Roma communities from localitilities with conflictual potential, by high level police representatives, including the leadership of the Institute for Crime Prevention, representatives of the National Agency for Roma, Romanian Government and of the OSCE-ODIHR Contact Point for Roma and Sinti.

The participants agreed that police intervention methods should be changed and that policemen need to be trained in order to be able to use new methods of intervention.

After this event, PER Regional Center organized a second meeting, at its quaters on â??Policemen Training for Diversity Awareness and Respect in Multiethnic Communitiesâ??. Representatives of the Ministry of Administration and Interior, National Council for Combating Discrimination, National Agency for Roma and Roma Party were present at the Center.

The participants drafted some recommendations for police training. PER Regional Center will initiated the activities necessary for puting into practice the recommendations and will be supported by the Ministry of Admnistration and Interior.

9.   Interethnic relations in the civil society structures. The NGOs fair

The Tirgu Mures office of the Center, organized in May 2007 the fifth edition of the NGOs from Mures County fair with the title â?? Together for the Communityâ??. This fair offered the NGOs the opportunity to interact in an informal framework, not only between them, but with authorities and journalists as well.

10.   Stateâ??s support mechanisms for ethno-cultural communities abroad. Transnational minorities.

The round table organized by the Center was held on April 30 at the Centerâ??s quarters and was attended by representatives of the Department for Romanians Abroad, the Institute for Romanian Language, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Citizenship Section, Ministry of Justice and researchers from the Institute for Education Sciences.
The subjects on the agenda were:
-Â Â Â Promoting the interests and rights of Romanian abroad, in EU member states, a new challenges for Romanian foreign policy.
-Â Â Â Institutional system: defining the competences and responsabilities of institutions dealing with Romanians from abroad issues.
The participants analized the draft law for Romanians abroad that is still waiting to be debated by the Parliament.

As part of the conference series entitled New Approaches to the Issue of Minorities in the European Union launched in December 2007, the roundtable addressed the issue of preparing a long-term strategy of minority protection in the European Union. More specifically, the discussion took up, among other subjects, policy recommendations towards the realization of such a strategy on the basis of a European Parliament resolution, the necessary instruments of such a strategy, as well as the potential implementing agents of a minority protections system in the European Union.

-Â Â Â Concepts of Roma housing policies and the vision used by governments when formulating these policies;
-Â Â Â Expectations/vision of the Roma regarding housing policies;
-Â Â Â Successful improvement of the housing conditions for Roma, examples and areas covered;
-Â Â Â Actors and their responsibilities in creating and implementing housing policy mechanisms for Roma communities across Europe.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface 1
Learning to Live Together: The Role of the Media in Covering Interethnic Relations in the Black Sea Region 3
List of participants 20
Other Per Publications 22

PREFACE
In the Black Sea Region, the complexities of ethnic relations are as diverse as the communities that live there. All the countries in the area are multi-ethnic, and all have political borders which do not necessarily reflect their lines of ethnic division. Many of these countries are relatively new democracies still hashing out the mechanisms of free press and transparency. Others are new members to the European Union and NATO. All, however, are still, to different extents, saddled with the remnants of a non-democratic past. What is more, the treatment of minorities in this region garners global attention as too often this is the field on which the international community exercises its power plays.

Download the full report here:

LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER: THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA IN COVERING INTERETHNIC RELATIONS IN THE BLACK SEA REGION

Preliminary Report

roundtable discussion organized by

The Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) Regional Center for Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe,
PER in Princeton, New Jersey, USA
and the
European Parliament’s Intergroup on Traditional National Minorities, Constitutional Regions and Regional Languages

On May 7, 2008, the Project on Ethnic Relations (PER) Regional Center for Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe in Bucharest, PER in Princeton, New Jersey, USA and the European Parliament’s Intergroup on Traditional National Minorities, Constitutional Regions and Regional Languages organized a roundtable discussion entitled Towards a European Parliament Resolution on National Minorities in the European Union. The roundtable organized in the European Parliament, in Brussels brought together members of the European Parliament, representatives of EU institutions, Member State Governments, intergovernmental organizations and minority policy experts. The discussion was co-chaired by Livia B. Plaks, President of PER and Csaba Tabajdi, Chairman of the EP Intergroup for Traditional National Minorities, Constitutional Regions and Regional Languages. The key-note speakers of the roundtable were Attila MarkA3, Secretary of State of the Department for Interethnic Relations from Romania and Gabriel N. Toggenburg, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Minority Rights from Bolzano, Italy.

As part of the conference series entitled New Approaches to the Issue of Minorities in the European Union launched in December 2007, the roundtable addressed the issue of preparing a European Parliament (EP) resolution on national minorities in the European Union (EU). More specifically, the discussion took up, among other subjects, questions such as the potential role, place and implications of such a resolution in EU law, or its connection to Council of Europe and OSCE instruments of similar character. The roundtable also tackled the issue of the possible main elements of such a document, the role of the EP Committees and of the Intergroup in the drafting and passing process, as well as the necessary preparatory steps for having it drafted and passed in the EP.

The participants of the roundtable stressed the political significance of keeping the issue of national minorities on the EU agenda through discussing the idea of drafting and passing an EP resolution on the subject. For such a document to gain contours there is a need, first of all, for a comprehensive study to clarify the differences between various minority categories within the EU, in order to identify the various rights and necessary measures these differences imply. Further, when discussing the potential elements of a future EP resolution on national minorities, a comprehensive inventory of existing tools and problems has to be carried out in order to pin down tasks to be referred to in the document. These include, among others, better internal coordination and harmonization, mainstreaming, the clarification of the specific competences of the EP committees with regard to human and minority rights, or the necessity to establish a specialized institution on national minorities generating public policies that can empower states to instate already existing models of good governance.

In view of recent developments within the EU and their relation to the idea of an EP resolution on national minorities, the roundtable participants also underlined the necessity for the EP to clarify the exact role it attributes to the recently established EU Fundamental Rights Agency with the mandate extending to the protection of â?~minorities.â?? The EP also needs to develop its own authoritative interpretation with regard to minority protection and an effective and complementary inter-organizational cooperation between the EU, the Council of Europe and the OSCE. Finally, the participants at the roundtable emphasized the fundamental role of the Treaty of Lisbon that introduces for the first time the notion of â?~minoritiesâ?? into EU primary law. As such, the Treaty of Lisbon launches legal avenues to reconcile the double standards between the EU Copenhagen accession conditionality criteria with the lack of an internal EU minority protection system. Once its relevant yet still unclear provisions are clarified, it can serve as an essential starting point and reference for an EP resolution on national minorities, the participants underlined. In the spirit of better cooperation, solidarity and minority-majority dialogue, all these potential elements of an EP resolution on national minorities are essential for the stability, legitimacy and credibility of a culturally and linguistically diverse EU.

MEP Speakers

Edit BAUER, MEP, EPP-ED, Slovakia
Titus CORLÄ?AcEAN, MEP, Socialist Group, Romania
Ignasi GUARDANS CAMBO, MEP, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe, Spain
JaromA­r KOHLA?ÄOEK, MEP, United Left-Nordic Green Left, Czech Republic
Henrik LAX, MEP, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, Finland
Katrin SAKS, MEP, Socialist Group, Estonia
Adrian SEVERIN, MEP, Socialist Group, Member of the PER Board of Directors, Romania
Csaba SA?GOR, MEP, EPP-ED, Romania
Csaba TABAJDI, MEP, Chairman of the Intergroup for Traditional National Minorities, Constitutional Regions and Regional Languages, Hungary
Tatjana A1DANOKA, MEP, Greens/EFA, Latvia

Participants list (download here)