The constitutional protection of linguistic diversity in some of the EU countries

Abstract

The recently approved European Charter of Rights establishes ( art. 22) the respect of cultural, religious and linguistic diversities. This is a general and programmatic provision which may be acted upon in different ways according to the policies that the European Union will establish at the due time. Inevitably, these policies will have to keep in view the cultural · and historical differences of the European Union members involved. At the present state it is not possible to predict whether the European Union will provide for common standards in order to guarantee linguistic diversities; Otherwise the European Union could grant to each State the right to establish procedures and ways of conduct to ensure the use and the protection of language rights. Apart from these two scenarios, it is most likely that the European Union institutions will be influenced by particular national experiences. The focus of this paper consists in examining the constitutional and legislative provisions relating to the protection of language rights, underlining the principal characteristics of each national legal system as well as the eventual common profiles that may be considered as common constitutional traditions.