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Nicolas Levrat, the UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues, has criticized the European Union for applying double standards in minority protection. Following his official visit to EU institutions, Levrat highlighted that while the EU promotes minority rights in its enlargement policy abroad, it lacks the tools and political will to protect indigenous minority and endangered languages within its own borders.
The Rapporteur urged the European Commission to create a comprehensive minority rights strategy and suggested using Article 167 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to safeguard linguistic diversity.
The United Nations has begun to substantively address the issue of linguistic rights of national minorities. Nicolas Levrat, the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, voiced strong criticism in Brussels on January 28 following his first official visit to European Union institutions.
Levrat sharply criticized the EU for applying a double standard in the field of minority protection. His remarks focused in particular on the absence of consistent and effective safeguards for European minority and endangered languages. The purpose of his visit was to assess how well the EU complies with international minority rights standards, with special attention to linguistic rights. Read the full statement here.
“The EU’s workforce remains far from representative of the diversity found within the EU,” Levrat said. “EU institutions, agencies and bodies must accelerate efforts to recruit and retain more personnel belonging to minorities.”
Levrat emphasized that while the European Union plays a significant role in promoting minority rights outside its borders – especially through its enlargement policy – it lacks both the tools and the political will to address minority issues within the Union itself. According to him, this gap must be closed to ensure real and effective protection for minorities inside the EU.
“The respect for the human rights of persons belonging to minorities is one of the founding values of the European Union,” Levrat stated. He added, however, that because the European Commission does not recognize a clear EU competence in this area, the Union is unable to adopt binding legislation or policies that would directly protect minorities. As an alternative, he suggested that the EU should develop mechanisms that would oblige member states to uphold this fundamental value.
Although the rapporteur praised the EU’s anti-discrimination framework – which covers a wide range of minority groups, including immigrants and their descendants – he called on the European Commission to create a more comprehensive minority rights strategy. Such a framework, he argued, would ensure a more coherent approach across the EU and address the specific needs of linguistic minorities, which are currently largely absent from EU policies.
Specifically, Levrat proposed that the Union could base its action on Article 167 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, noting that the cultural diversity of Europe clearly includes linguistic diversity, including minority languages. He suggested that a strategic framework supporting endangered minority languages, similar to the EU Roma Strategic Framework, would be particularly welcome.
