News

Italian ratification of the Charter for Minority Languages not yet: government changes wording

The Council of Ministers now says that only a draft bill has been prepared · The issue must still be debated in the Parliament · Sardinian organization asks Rome to speed the approval of the law for the "best interest of democracy and for the respect of civil rights"

The Council of Ministers of the Italian government has changed the wording referring to the ratification of the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (ECRML). As Nationalia said yesterday, the Council had agreed to ratify the Charter for twelve minorised languages. But at certain moment, today or yesterday, the Italian government has decided to change the text.

The original text reads: "Il Consiglio dei Ministri [...] ha ratificato la Carta europea delle lingue regionali o minoritarie", that is, "The Council of Ministers [...] has ratified the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages". It can still be seen on some repositories like LeggiOggi (an image capture of this is attached to this information, click on the picture to enlarge it). But the version on the Council's website is different now: "Il Consiglio dei Ministri [...] ha approvato il disegno di legge di ratifica della Carta europea delle lingue regionali o minoritarie", that is, "The Council of Ministers [...] has passed a draft bill for the ratification of the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages".

According to informations from the new European Language Equality Network (ELEN) to Nationalia, this means that the text still has to go to the Parliament and Senate for approval. All in all, thus, Italy has not ratified yet the ECRML.

Committee for the Sardinian Language: "Quickly proceed to approval"

The Committee for the Sardinian Language has been one of the first organizations that have reacted to the change of the wording. According to Il Minuto, the Committee has asked that the draft bill "quickly proceeds to approval" in the "best interest of democracy and for the respect of civil rights".