Colloquium on the language rights of national minorities

To mark 50 years of Switzerland’s membership of the Council of Europe, the Federal Office of Culture and the Directorate of International Law devote a day to the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and to the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Alain Berset opens it. The OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities presents his approach, on the eve of the Swiss OSCE Chairmanship.

“A language is not just a language.” It carries a culture and a way of seeing the world. He takes a position in the debate on language teaching: multilingualism must not be a code word for saying that minorities must learn the language of the majority.

Speeches on this site

• Colloque sur les droits linguistiques des minorités nationales en Suisse (French-language page)

Sources

• Federal Council, speech of 09.12.2013
• Federal Council, press release of 21.11.2013