cohesion - European Centre for Modern Languages

The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a cultural instrument
designed to protect and promote regional and minority languages as part of the cultural
heritage of the whole population. It is of course also concerned with mutual
understanding and respect for all the languages and cultures in a country. The Charter
is a unique standard setting instrument and, because it is a monitoring mechanism,
operates in a different manner to our other policy instruments and tools for language
education. Unlike the Charter, these “soft standards” do not have a normative function
– as was repeatedly emphasised at our Policy Forum on the Common European
Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) in February. One of our tasks no
doubt will be to draw on these reference instruments and tools for implementation to
assist member states in their follow-up to the Council of Europe’s recommendations for
action arising from the language Charter’s monitoring process. I am thinking in
particular of Article 8, which deals with teaching in and of minority languages.
The political context for Council of Europe language work
Before summarising some current developments, I shall briefly recall the political
framework for our work in languages. This is provided in the first instance by the
Action Plan drawn up by the Heads of State and Government at the 3rd Summit of the
Council of Europe in Warsaw (May 2005). The importance attached to social cohesion
and intercultural dialogue has already been highlighted in the Secretary General’s
opening statement.
Exactly two years after the Summit, in May this year in Istanbul, the Standing
Conference of European Ministers of Education examined the contribution of
education policies to the Action Plan under the conference theme “Building a more
humane and inclusive Europe: role of education policies”. They stressed the
importance of ensuring access to quality education for all young people across Europe,
and of developing concrete measures for inclusive education.
The Council of Europe’s action is values and rights driven, and our response to these
issues can be placed in the context of the right to education, which is enshrined in the
European Convention on Human Rights, and within the development of values and
competences for democratic culture and social cohesion. The ministers referred
specifically to citizenship competences, intercultural competence and plurilingual
competence.
Languages of schooling
This is the broader political context for the recent work that I will now summarise. I
will concentrate on one project dealing with the main languages of instruction in
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