Conference organised in the framework of the Hungarian Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe

On 29 June 2021, the Council of Europe and the Hungarian authorities are organising the high-level conference “Council of Europe norms and standards on national minority rights: Results and challenges”.

The conference will take place in hybrid format in the Hemicycle of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and via web streaming.

 Background

National minority rights are essential to ensure peace and stability on the European continent. The Council of Europe provides a widely recognised normative scheme and key mechanisms to ensure the protection for persons belonging to national minorities. Hungary supported the organisation’s endeavours in this area from the outset. The Hungarian Presidency of the Committee of Ministers therefore wishes to highlight the role of the Council of Europe as the continent’s leading human rights organisation in protecting national minorities.

 Objective

This conference is dedicated to the Council of Europe’s norms and standards in the field of national minorities and builds on the conference held on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages “Minorities and Minority Languages in a Changing Europe” organised by the Croatian Presidency of the Committee of Ministers in June 2018.

The aim of the conference is to assess the achievements and to identify the remaining challenges in the field of minority rights protection in Europe. During three panel discussions, speakers will address the functioning of the Council of Europe’s protection mechanisms for national minorities. The experiences of the Parliamentary Assembly, the Venice Commission and the European Court of Human Rights will also be examined, as will the results of the reform of the two monitoring mechanisms on national minorities and minority languages carried out since 2018.

 Speakers

The conference will be opened by Marija Pejčinović Burić, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, and Gergely Gulyás, Minister, Head of the Prime Minister’s Office of Hungary. Further speakers include Dunja Mijatović, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Ivana Jelić, Judge at the European Court of Human Rights, members of the Parliamentary Assembly, the Venice Commission, the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, as well as representatives of Council of Europe member states.