This includes the international standards of minority protection. FUEN first presented the main principles for European minority rights in 1967 which were revised and supplemented in 1985. Of course, FUEN supports all endeavours of the Council of Europe in this respect. It places great hope in the new mechanisms taking effect this year, in the European Charter on Regional and Minority Languages and in the Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, and hopes that these will be accordingly ratified by all member states of the Council of Europe and implemented in the sense the documents lay down. Members FUEN is the umbrella association of European national minorities.
Full members are representative organisations of national minorities.
Organisations initially wishing to become familiar with FUEN work or ones interested only in particular fields of minority policy become associate members. Four state institutions support FUEN with annual grants, while four scientific institutes promote FUEN materially and ideologically. They base their activities on a democratic and constitutional state, they reject violence and separatism. The FUEN's official languages are English, French, Russian and German. Project subsidies relate to individual working projects, e.g. international minority conferences, seminars, visits and consultation in minority settlement areas, publications, etc.