The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML)
& the Committee of Experts (COMEX)
The British Government ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) in 2001. Irish is protected under the Charter up to and including Part 3.
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (theCharter) is an international convention aimed at protecting and promoting regional and minority languages as a threatened aspect of Europe’s cultural heritage. For this reason, in addition to a non- discrimination section relating to the use of these languages, there is provision for measures that offer them active support. ‘Only in this way can such languages be compensated, where necessary, for unfavourable conditions in the past and preserved and developed as a living facet of Europe’s cultural identity.
The Charter promotes a multicultural approach to the languages it protects. Its aims, which have influenced this report, are to create a culture in which regional and minority languages thrive in the company of one another and in the company of the major languages of the State.
The Charter establishes a common core of principles, set out in Part II, which apply to all regional or minority languages. Part III of the Charter contains a series of specific provisions concerning the place of regional or minority languages in the various sectors of community life. Under Part III, ‘the individual states are free, within certain limits, to determine which of these provisions will apply to each of the languages spoken within their frontiers’.
The UK Government ratified the Charter in March 2001 and adopted obligations to protect and promote the Irish language, which has Part III status.
The UK Government has selected thirty-six articles under the Charter to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, that the Irish language is used in education and in the media and to allow its use in judicial and administrative contexts, in economic and social life and in cultural activities.
The Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure chaired, and provided the secretariat for an Interdepartmental Group for the implementation of the Charter, which oversees the implementation of the Charter by departments and coordinates input into periodic progress reports on implementation with the Council of Europe. (This hasn't met since DCAL was replaced with DfC in 2016).
In 2016 the Department for Communities DfC published the following guidance regarding the implementation of the Charter: https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/publications/guidance-european-charter-regional-or-minority-languages
The Council of Europe’s Committee of Experts (COMEX) measures progress on the implementation of the Charter every three years. Following their visit in September 2009, the COMEX recommended that UK authorities prioritise ‘the adoption and implementation of a comprehensive Irish language policy, preferably through legislation’.
The Full Text of the European Charter can be read here: https://rm.coe.int/1680695175
You can access the COMEX monitoring reports for the Charter online here: https://www.coe.int/en/web/european-charter-regional-or-minority-languages/reports-and-recommendations#{%2228993157%22:[24]}
You can read each monitoring cycle by COMEX and the coinciding State Reports (from the UK Government) alongside the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers Report below:
