The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe. The preparation for the charter was undertaken by the predecessor to the current Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, the Standing Conference of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe because involvement of local and regional government was essential. The actual charter was written in the Parliamentary Assembly based on the Congress' Recommendations. It only applies to languages traditionally used by the nationals of the State Parties (thus excluding languages used by recent immigrants from other states), which significantly differ from the majority or official language (thus excluding what the state party wishes to consider as mere local dialects of the official or majority language) and that either have a territorial basis (and are therefore traditionally spoken by populations of regions or areas within the State) or are used by linguistic minorities within the State as a whole (thereby including such languages as Yiddish and Romani, which are used over a wide geographic area).
Languages that are official within regions, provinces or federal units within a State (for example Catalan in Spain) are not classified as official languages of the State and may therefore benefit from the Charter. On the other hand, the Republic of Ireland has not been able to sign the Charter on behalf of the Irish language (although a minority language) as it is defined as the first official language of the state. The United Kingdom has ratified the Charter in respect of (among other languages) Welsh in Wales and Irish in Northern Ireland. France, although a signatory, has been constitutionally blocked from ratifying the Charter in respect of the languages of France.
The charter provides a large number of different actions state parties can take to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages. There are two levels of protection—all signatories must apply the lower level of protection to qualifying languages. Signatories may further declare that a qualifying language or languages will benefit from the higher level of protection, which lists a range of actions from which states must agree to undertake at least 35.
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Countries that have ratified the Charter, and languages for which the ratification was made:
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Armenia ratification: 25 January 2002 Austria ratification: 28 June 2001[1]
Bosnia and Herzegovina ratification: 21 September 2010
Croatia ratification: 5 November 1997 Cyprus ratification: 26 August 2002 Czech Republic ratification: 15 November 2006
Denmark ratification: 8 September 2000[2]
Finland ratification: 9 November 1994
Germany ratification: 16 September 1998[3]
Hungary ratification: 26 April 1995 Liechtenstein ratification: 18 November 1997
Luxembourg ratification: 22 June 2005
Montenegro ratification: 15 February 2006 Netherlands ratification: 2 May 1996
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Poland ratification: 12 February 2009[6]
Romania ratification 24 October 2007 [7] Part II applied to: Part III applied to: Serbia ratification: 15 February 2006[8][9] Slovakia ratification: 5 September 2001 Slovenia ratification: 4 October 2000 Spain ratification: 9 April 2001
Sweden ratification: 9 February 2000 Switzerland ratification: 23 December 1997 Ukraine ratification: 19 September 2005 Ukraine does not specify languages by name, but rather ratifies on behalf of "the languages of the following ethnic minorities of Ukraine":[11] Not counted are Rusyns (Ruthenians), since Ukraine (unlike neighboring countries) denies them separate ethnic and linguistic status.
United Kingdom ratification : 27 March 2001 All languages are ratified as applicable to the territory of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, except Manx, which is ratified on behalf of the Crown dependency of the Isle of Man.
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