Rejecting the Minority SafePack - Europe is the loser

The European Commission (EC) with the unwillingness to initiate legislation based on the Minority SafePack (MSPI) citizens' initiative, backed by 1.123.422 supporters' signature, turned its face away from an action important not just for those citizens, but to all factions of the European Parliament, expressed through the favorable vote of their majorities. Moreover, rejecting already the fifth citizens‘ initiative, the EC shows a disregard towards the only possible way of direct democratical action of the EU's citizens, respectively towards the legislative partnership of the European Parliament.

The refusal, justified in a very inadequate manner, is based on the assertion that in recent years, important progress was done in all the domains included as demands in the MSPI. The unprofesionalism and ignorance of the EC is best demonstrated by the fact that they refer as an example of the considerable progress on the Roma Strategy of the EU, respectively on the services of the Center for Modern Languages, in Graz, overlooking the fact that these undeniably impressive and useful EU projects have nothing to do with the requests formulated in MSPI.
We are strongly convinced that our work through the MSPI is beneficial not just for the minority communities directly involved all around Europe, but for the EU as a whole. In this order, we won't give up our ambition and we are looking for new ways and methods to reach our goals. We are glad to mention that we got in the past and we get permanently a lot of support all around Europe, the Western European Association of Hungarian Country Organizations being one of our most reliable partner.

As a finishing thought, we express our hope that the other significant initiative, The Citizens' Initiative for National Regions, will gather in the right time the required number of signatures, therefore, we call for Hungarians in Austria to support it.

Summary of: Vincze Loránt: A Minority SafePack elutasításával Európa veszített.

(The author is a Member of the European Parliament and the President of the Federal Union of European Nationalities - FUEN, respectively the coordinator of the MSPI)