Mehrsprachigkeit in Europa: Plurilinguismo in Europa ... - EURAC

Juridical Status of Minority Languages in some Border Areas
The reality shows that a certain degree of minority protection exists in Greece for religious
minorities, as it is foreseen by Articles 19-23 of the Treaty of Lausanne. Thus, in the Muslim
schools of Thrace there is the possibility for Muslim pupils to study in the Turkish language. This
linguistic right is not applied to Pomaks and Roma. This possibility to have a Turkish language
education is effective through Agreements with Turkey, which can provide some of the teachers,
even if most of the teachers of Turkish language in the minority school in Thrace receive their
education in Greece, more exactly in Komotini and closed areas.
It is evident that a shift in the minority protection of Greece will be possible through a
widening of the concept of minority. So far, this has not happened, but many local initiatives
aiming to foster the use of minority languages may be seen as very relevant.
4. The regional level as the most adequate for the linguistic minorities’
protection
The role of regional laws is as relevant in the frame of the State legislation as the role of the
Regions is towards the State. In places where the sub-state entities have many competences,
like Spain, it is evident that the strength of the policy to promote regional languages will be
more relevant than in States like France or Greece where regional legislation does not exist. But
it has to be always kept in mind that also inside the same State the importance of the regional
laws may be different, according to many factors: the weight of this region inside the State, the
cohesion of the promoters of the regional autonomy (and thus of the regional language, when
it exists) and the will of the persons and of the politicians to take advantage of the cultural
autonomy. So, in Italy, South Tyrol has a stronger policy for minority protection than Calabria
because the cohesion of the German group is a fact and because the percentage of Germans
and Ladins in the Province of Bolzano is higher than the percentage of Albanians in Calabria.
There is not a regional policy which is the same inside the same State, there is a single regional
policy for every region, and this affects the cultural and linguistic issues. Navarra policy for the
euskara is affected by many factors like the limited area where the minority lives, the lack of
strong interest shown by the main parties, and the weakness of the regions inside the State.
Of course, it is not only fault of the “bad” majority against the “good” minority. There is also
a natural trend in some areas to abandon the practice of the regional language in favour of the
more spread and prestigious majority language.
According to the different cases, the regions will be able to develop their cultural and
linguistic policies: I insist that in the cases of sub-states entities with legislative power this
task is easier to develop. Among the regions here taken in consideration, a very rough ranking
sets at the fi rst place South Tyrol, then Navarra, then Alsace, and then fi nally Thrace. In fact
South Tyrol has a strong legislative power which is exploited at its best, Navarra has a strong
legislative power which is exploited to a minimum. Alsace has a kind of soft regional power
which is well exploited, and Thrace has a weak regional power which cannot provide strong
linguistic policies.
Those statements about the regional power are not meant to be a naive praise of autonomy.
It is not important to state whether autonomy is good or bad, what is relevant from the juridical
point of view is to know how effective it is, while the political science approach examines the
reasons for the demand of autonomy. As far as minority languages are concerned, I insist that
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