WRITTEN QUESTION E-2777/03 by Stavros Xarchakos (PPE-DE) to the Commission. Use of the Aromanian, Albanian, Slavo-Macedonian and Pomak languages in Greece.
Date: 2003-09-16
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Greece, language teaching, minority language, non-governmental organisation, regional language, statistics

13.3.2004

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 65 E/215

(2004/C 65 E/230)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2777/03

by Stavros Xarchakos (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(16 September 2003)

Subject: Use of the Aromanian, Albanian, Slavo-Macedonian and Pomak languages in Greece

In her answer to my Question No E-1710/03 (1) on the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages
(EBLUL), Commissioner Reding stated, inter alia, that: ‘The minority language groups in the Union were
identified by researchers and the results published in 1996 in the Euromosaic study. (…) On page 41 of
the English version of this study a reference is made to the existence of Aromanian, Albanian and Slavo-
Macedonian in Greece, each of which has an estimated number of speakers of between 50 000 and
80 000.’

In response to my request
Commissioner referred me to the EBLUL website.

for precise information about members of

the EBLUL committees,

the

I am therefore obliged to repeat my question and to ask a number of new questions:

1.

Is the Commission (which funds this Office) aware of the precise identity of the members of these
committees and does it know whether there has been any friction between any of them and the
national authorities of certain Member States?

2. Has the Commission investigated who compiled the statistics on speakers of ‘Aromanian, Albanian
and Slavo-Macedonian’ in Greece (which are quoted by the Commissioner and are taken from the
Euromosaic report) and whether they are totally reliable and really official?

3.

Is EBLUL engaged in the promotion and teaching of Pomak in Greek Thrace? What specific activities
has it taken to ensure that Pomak children are taught their mother tongue, rather than Turkish, as has
occurred for decades and still occurs today, despite the fact that they are not of Turkish origin and
their language (Pomak) is one of the most ancient languages of the region, has an alphabet and a
grammar and thousands of primers have been printed for primary school children but have never
been used?

(1) OJ C 11 E, 15.1.2004, p. 218.

Answer given by Mrs Reding on behalf of the Commission

(23 October 2003)

With regard to the first question, the Commission refers the Honourable Member to its answers to his
Written Questions E-1140/03 (1) and E-1710/03 (2). The European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages
(EBLUL) is an independent non-government organisation, and its national committees are independent
bodies constituted at the level of each Member State.

The Euromosaic study was funded following an invitation to tender and was carried out by independent
experts duly identified in the published report.

Concerning the second question, the three managers of the report, Peter Nelde (Onderzoekscentrum voor
Meertaligheid, Katholieke Universiteit Brussel), Miquel Strubell (Direcció General de Política Lingüística,
Barcelona) and Glyn Williams (Research Centre Wales, Bangor), worked with an expert committee
comprising ten members from the EU, the United States and Canada.

Besides the general report published by the Commission in 1996, entitled Euromosaic: the production and
reproduction of the minority language groups in the European Union, and quoted by the Commission in
its answers to the Honourable Member’s two previous questions, the same team produced more than
50 individual reports, all with the same structure, on each of the language communities.

C 65 E/216

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

13.3.2004

Regarding the last question, the role of the Bureau is specified on its website (3):

(cid:1) to promote active EU policy-making in favour of regional or minority languages and to defend the

linguistic rights of the speakers of those languages;

(cid:1) to safeguard the languages of more than 40 million minority language speakers living in EU Member

States;

(cid:1) to represent regional or minority languages in dealings with EU institutions and other international

organisations;

(cid:1) to coordinate the range of activities of specialised institutions and/or associations actively involved in
language promotion, as well as to coordinate the range of activities of its Member State Committees;

(cid:1) to keep language communities informed about European policy developments concerning minority

languages and about language-related programmes;

(cid:1) to maintain a permanent communication between communities and to facilitate contacts and

exchanges between them;

(cid:1) to organise cultural events and conferences in Brussels or in those Member States in which regional or

minority languages are spoken;

(cid:1) to seek legal and political support in favour of lesser-used languages at EU and Member State level.

As teaching and education systems are the full responsibility of the Member States, pursuant to Article 149
of the EC Treaty, the educational situation of Pomak children in Greece is the exclusive responsibility of
the Greek State.

(1) OJ C 268 E, 7.11.2003, p. 176.
(2) OJ C 11 E, 15.1.2004, p. 218.
(3) http://ww2.lingualia.net:8080/agares/eblul

(2004/C 65 E/231)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2781/03

by Maurizio Turco (NI), Marco Pannella (NI),
Marco Cappato (NI), Benedetto Della Vedova (NI), Gianfranco Dell’Alba (NI)
and Olivier Dupuis (NI) to the Commission

Subject: Violation of religious freedom in China (cid:1) the Falun Gong

(17 September 2003)

According to the Chinese national press agency Xin-Hua the government in Beijing intends to continue its
campaign against the Falun Gong Movement, an organisation it calls ‘an evil cult’, which is ‘anti-social’ and
‘anti-scientific’.

The communiqué says ‘we are aware that the battle will be long, arduous and complex. We must
therefore be vigilant and spare no efforts in this undertaking’.

The results of this ‘undertaking’ (cid:1) made by the Beijing government and reiterated in this way (cid:1) are as
follows: 1 600 members of the Falun Gong movement tortured and beaten to death; 500 sentenced to
more than twenty years’ imprisonment, 1 000 interned in psychiatric institutions, 25 thousand undergoing
‘reeducation’ in labour camps and 100 000 detained without trial.

Can the Commission say:

(cid:1) whether it knows about these declarations of intent on the part of the Beijing government;

(cid:1) whether it knows that members of the Falun Gong movement in a Union country (cid:1) Belgium (cid:1) have
brought before the courts charges of ‘genocide, torture and crimes against humanity’ against the
former Chinese President Jang Zemin, now head of the army, and two of his close collaborators;