On 5 November, on the occasion of the International Romani Language Day, the Division of National Minorities and Minority Languages and the Roma and Travellers Division of the Council of Europe and the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC) co-hosted the 5th edition the “Safeguarding Romani Language” conference, in Strasbourg. Jürgen Pirker, member of the Committee of Experts in respect of Austria, presented the findings and recommendations of the COMEX, as well as promising practices in states parties when it comes to the protection, promotion and harmonisation of the Romani language.

The session, organised on 7 November, within the 12th edition of the World Forum for Democracy 2024, featured a panel of experts to explore how democracies can harness the power of diversity to address issues of discrimination and exclusion. Jürgen Pirker, member in respect of Austria, represented the Committee of Experts at the Forum Talk and stressed that “language and identity are deeply interrelated, and the value of a language depends on its functionality in public life. There is a link between the image of a language, its value, its perception, its functionality and the self-esteem of the speakers of the languages”.

On 28-29 November, the secretariat participated in the 17th session of the United Nations Forum on Minority Issues in Geneva. The topic of this year’s Forum was “Minority representation and self-representation in public spaces and discourses”. Elise Cornu, Head of the Council of Europe Division of National Minorities and Minority Languages, stressed the need for preserving the essential elements of the identity of the persons belonging to national minorities, including their language and cultural heritage, and to ensure that minorities are visible in the public space. She underlined that the Council of Europe supports states’ efforts to strengthen diverse and inclusive societies, in which minorities are visible, respected and consulted on decisions that affect them.

From 30 September to 4 October, a delegation of the Committee of Experts visited Slovenia and met with the representatives of regional or minority languages speakers and authorities to evaluate the progress made in the implementation of the Charter. Monitoring visits to Armenia and the Slovak Republic are scheduled to the first semester of 2025. Two evaluation reports and two mid-term reports were published during the second semester of 2024: the sixth evaluation report on the United Kingdom and the sixth evaluation report on Spain in September 2024, and the evaluations by the Committee of Experts of the Implementation of the Recommendations for Immediate Action contained in the Committee of Experts’ seventh evaluation reports on the Netherlands and Germany in June and July 2024 respectively.