How can linguistic diversity be taken into account to ensure access to public services to all citizens? This is the issue the Congress Governance Committee discussed on 13 June 2019 during its meeting in Várpalota, Hungary.

“Linguistic diversity is both an asset and a growing challenge for local and regional governance” said Andrew Dawson (United Kingdom, ECR) when presenting the report on “The use of languages by local and regional authorities".

The rapporteur stressed the need to take into account, as far as is reasonably possible, all linguistic diversity, in terms of minority languages, as defined by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, but also in terms of foreign languages spoken by citizens with a migration background. Indeed, "when local or regional authorities are working on integration, social inclusion and citizen participation issues, it is not useful to always make a distinction between traditional minority languages and migrant languages", underlined the rapporteur.

The report was approved by the Governance Committee and will be submitted for adoption at the 37th Congress Session (29-31 October 2019). The Committee proposes in particular to invite the member States of the Council of Europe which have not yet done so to ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. In addition, local and regional authorities are encouraged to "ensure adequate access to public service and democratic bodies to all linguistic minorities " through a series of measures. These include assessing the citizens’ language needs, providing language training and interpretation services, recruiting officials competent in the relevant languages and giving information about political rights and elections, as well as about public services such as health, education, employment services and taxes.