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(2010) 4 European Charter for Regional Or Minority Languages

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Strasbourg, 21 April 2010 ECRML (2010) 4 EUROPEAN CHARTER FOR REGIONAL OR MINORITY LANGUAGES APPLICATION OF THE CHARTER IN THE UNITED KINGDOM 3rd monitoring cycle A. Report of the Committee of Experts on the Charter B. Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the application of the Charter by the United Kingdom The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages provides for a control mechanism to evaluate how the Charter is applied in a State Party with a view to, where necessary, making Recommendations for improving its legislation, policy and practices. The central element of this procedure is the Committee of Experts, set up under Article 17 of the Charter. Its principal purpose is to report to the Committee of Ministers on its evaluation of compliance by a Party with its undertakings, to examine the real situation of regional or minority languages in the State and, where appropriate, to encourage the Party to gradually reach a higher level of commitment. To facilitate this task, the Committee of Ministers adopted, in accordance with Article 15.1, an outline for subsequent periodical reports that a Party is required to submit to the Secretary General. The report should be made public by the State. This outline requires the State to give an account of the concrete application of the Charter, the general policy for the languages protected under Part II and, in more precise terms, all measures that have been taken in application of the provisions chosen for each language protected under Part III of the Charter. The Committee of Experts‘ first task is therefore to examine the information contained in the periodical report for all the relevant regional or minority languages on the territory of the State concerned. The Committee of Experts‘ role is to evaluate the existing legal acts, regulations and real practice applied in each State for its regional or minority languages. It has established its working methods accordingly. The Committee of Experts gathers information from the respective authorities and from independent sources within the State, so as to attempt to obtain a fair and just overview of the real language situation. After a preliminary examination of an initial periodical report, the Committee of Experts submits, if necessary, a number of questions to each Party to obtain supplementary information from the authorities on matters it considers insufficiently developed in the report itself. This written procedure is usually followed up by an —on-the-spot visit“ by a delegation of the Committee of Experts to the State in question. During this visit the delegation meets bodies and associations whose work is closely related to the use of the relevant languages, and consults the authorities on matters that have been brought to its attention. This information-gathering process is designed to enable the Committee of Experts to evaluate more effectively the application of the Charter in the State concerned. Having concluded this process, the Committee of Experts adopts its own report. This report is submitted to the Committee of Ministers, together with suggestions for recommendations that the latter may decide to address to the State Party. 2 Contents A. Report of the Committee of Experts on the application of the Charter in the United Kingdom ................................................................................................................4 Chapter 1 - Background information............................................................................................... 4 1.1. Ratification of the Charter by the United Kingdom ........................................................... 4 1.2. Presentation of the regional or minority language situation in the United Kingdom: update ............................................................................................................................. 4 1.3. Particular issues arising in the evaluation of the application of the Charter in the United Kingdom ............................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 2 - Conclusions of the Committee of Experts on how the State authorities have reacted to the recommendations of the Committee of Ministers (RecChL(2007)2).......... 7 Chapter 3 - The Committee of Experts‘ evaluation in respect of Parts II and III of the Charter ..... 10 3.1. Evaluation in respect of Part II of the Charter ................................................................ 10 3.2. Evaluation in respect of Part III of the Charter ............................................................... 22 3.2.1. The Welsh language....................................................................................... 23 3.2.2. The Scottish-Gaelic language......................................................................... 33 3.2.3. The Irish language.......................................................................................... 46 Chapter 4 - Findings of the Committee of Experts in the third monitoring round........................... 58 Appendix I: Instrument of Ratification ........................................................................................... 60 Appendix II: Comments by the United Kingdom authorities .......................................................... 63 B. Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the application of the Charter by the United Kingdom................................................69 3 A. Report of the Committee of Experts on the application of the Charter in the United Kingdom adopted by the Committee of Experts on 19 November 2009 and presented to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in accordance with Article 16 of the Charter Chapter 1 Background information 1.1. Ratification of the Charter by the United Kingdom 1. The United Kingdom signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (hereafter referred to as —the Charter“) on 2 March 2000, and ratified it on 27 March 2001. It entered into force on 1 July 2001. The instrument of ratification and subsequent declarations are set out in Appendix I of this report. 2. The authorities of the United Kingdom presented their third periodical report to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe on 25 June 2009, 11 months after it was due. 3. This third evaluation report is based on the information obtained by the Committee of Experts from the third periodical report of the UK and through meetings held with representatives of speakers of regional or minority languages in the UK and the UK authorities during the on-the-spot visit, which took place from 21 to 25 September 2009. The Committee of Experts also received an extensive number of comments from bodies and associations legally established in the UK, submitted pursuant to Article 16 paragraph 2 of the Charter. This information was very helpful in the course of evaluating the application of the Charter and the Committee of Experts would like to express its appreciation to these organisations for their valuable contribution and participation in the monitoring process. 4. The present report contains detailed observations which the UK authorities are encouraged to take into account when developing their policy on regional or minority languages. On the basis of these detailed observations, the Committee of Experts has also established a list of general proposals for the preparation of a third set of recommendations to be addressed to the UK by the Committee of Ministers, as provided in Article 16, paragraph 4 of the Charter. 5. This present third report was adopted by the Committee of Experts on 19 November 2009. 1.2. Presentation of the regional or minority language situation in the United Kingdom: update 6. The Committee of Experts refers to the relevant paragraphs of the first and second evaluation reports 1 for basic information on the situation of regional or minority languages in the UK. The regional or minority languages covered under the Charter in the UK are Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Scots, Ulster Scots and Cornish. Manx Gaelic in the Isle of Man is also covered under the Charter. Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Irish have been granted protection under Part III of the Charter, as indicated in the instrument of ratification. 7. New developments will be dealt with under Part II and Part III, where appropriate. There is no updated information about the number of speakers of regional or minority languages in the UK. Scots 8. In its second evaluation report (paragraph 25), the Committee of Experts noted that there was only an estimate of the number of speakers of Scots and stressed the need for an assessment of the number of speakers as an essential basis for developing a comprehensive language policy. 1 First evaluation report of the Committee of Experts on the application of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in the United Kingdom, ECRML (2004) 1 ; Second evaluation report on the application of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in the United Kingdom, ECRML (2007) 2. 4 9. The Committee of Experts was informed during the on-the-spot visit that the authorities were carrying out a survey on 1000 œ 2000 people on their level of Scots language competence as a preparation for the upcoming census in Scotland which will be held in 2011. The current intention seems to be to include a question on Scots, but it is not clear whether questions on detailed language competence (e.g. into speaking,
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