The Chair of NPLD and Vice-minister for Language Policy of the Basque Country, Patxi Baztarrika, will meet the Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sports, Tibor Navracsics, to discuss the Commission’s lines of action on regional and minority languages in Europe The Chair of the NPLD and Vice-minister for Language Policy of the Basque Country, Patxi Baztarrika, and Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sports Tibor Navracsics will be meeting on 14th of July to discuss the European Commission’s lines of action the promotion of regional and minority languages of Europe. The meeting takes place after the hearing of Commissioner Navracsics before the European Parliament’s Intergroup on Languages in which he made a firm statement in support of multilingualism, with a special reference to Europe’s regional and minority languages. “There is no contradiction between preserving our regional and minority languages on the one hand and promoting the learning of additional languages that open up new horizons in today’s interconnected world on the other. This is the objective of the European Commission’s multilingualism policy” – he claimed.
The Chair will be accompanied by the two Vice-chairs of NPLD, Sabrina Rasom, from the Ladin language community in the Fassa Valley (Italy), and Alex Riemersma, from the Frisian language community in Friesland (the Netherlands). They will be presenting to the Commissioner the NPLD’s Roadmap for Linguistic Diversity, a consensus document elaborated by 14 State and regional governments with minority language communities, universities and associations from across Europe. The Roadmap is a practical proposal with concrete policy actions on multilingualism addressed to the EU institutions, which adopts an inclusive approach to multilingualism beyond the 24 EU official languages.
The Chair and Vice-chairs will also give an overview of the different initiatives being currently developed across many regional language communities to link their language communities and regions with the European Commission’s priorities on growth, competitiveness and job creation. Examples include the recent study “The Value and Economic Impact of Basque”, promoted by the Basque Government, or the “Economic Benefits associated with the Irish Language which accrue to Galway City”, among many others.
Source: NPLD