The correspondent of Media centre FINUGOR informs that the director of management of Council of Europe for human rights Ralf-Rene Weingartner urged the authorities of Russia to ratify as soon as possible the European Charter for regional and minority languages on Congress of the Federal union of European nationalities (FUEN) in Moscow on May, 17th.

«On the Congress we will discuss the protection of languages - it is the most important for national minorities. Language discerns national minorities, creates them, therefore the preservation and thedevelopment of languages rescues the people from the assimilation. The European Charter ofminorities’ languages was ratified by 25 states; it means that their national minorities are under theprotection. But there are countries where the ratification of Charter did not take place after itssigning. Russia signed the Charter in 2001 and says that it takes into account all in national policythat states in it. Nevertheless it is necessary to provide the ratification of the given document. The delay with the ratification of the Charter from Russia is strange», - the representative of Council of Europe noted.

As he said, in 2009-2011 the European Union put into practice an active work for the rights of national minorities in Russia according to the plan of this Charter. The Charter pays the big attention to the role of language in a modern life, noted R.Weingartner. «There is an economic life where thelanguage of majority dominates naturally. It turns out so, that the youth starts to speak on this language and does not wish to use the language of the senior generation in corpore. According to the Charter all languages should be used freely in any area of a life. The Charter assumes the certain measures of protection of languages of minority that they could be used, realizing social functions», - the representative of Council of Europe concluded.