Toht M. M.
The article deals with peculiarities of legal regulation of linguistic relations in European Union law, the relationship between the proclaimed leading integration within the legal principles of respect for national identity states as equality and non-discrimination. It is noted that the EU is committed supporter of basic human rights and cultural diversity. It is noted that in the EU the legal basis is created to meet the social needs of multilingualism, at least at the level of the official languages of the Member States. It highlights the achievements of European courts in the fight against discrimination.
Attention is drawn to the fact that the language policy in the framework of integration based on the principles enshrined in the acts of primary legislation of the European Union, and normative acts in the form of gains as mandatory or optional power taken by individual institutions of the international organization. Languages of the states-founders were recognized as languages of the Community at the signing of the Treaty of Rome (Rome, 25 March 1957). They were provided by the regulatory text translation into the languages of all Member States.
The fundamental norms of the language regime of the EU, still prevails are fixed in Decree 1/58 / EUC in 1958, according to which persons (both physical and legal) were given the right to apply to any institution in the EU on any recognized official language. As the guiding principles on which the EU language policy is build the author marks out the followings: the principle of respect for the national identity of the Member States; the principle of equalityof languages; principle of non-discrimination.
It is noted that in accordance with the law of the European Court of Justice not only the discrimination is banned, but also its indirect forms based on the first sight, on objective factors, are often the result of discrimination against citizens of other EU countries. Thus, for example, an objective factor (criterion) some states determine the knowledge of the language for the right to employment or permanent residence in another EU country.
The article stated that the EU now has 24 official languages, which are also given this status within individual EU Member States, despite the fact that the number of languages in those countries under the definition of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages according to experts more than 90. Number of the Minority Languages and their speakers, as well as the proportion of people in the population grew along with the expansion of the EU.
In the «big wave» of expansion (2004). among the «old» EU member states, Spain was the only country where the proportion of citizens who communicate in the minority language is over 10 %. In some of the «new» EU countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the proportion of such people is much greater. For example, in Latvia 38 %, Estonia 31 % in Lithuania and Bulgaria, 16 % in Slovakia for more than 10 % of the population are citizens who communicate in a language other than the official language of the state. The largest minority language group in the EU is Russians, nearly 2 million people, most of whom live in the Baltic countries.
The most commonspread minority language group in the central Europe is Hungarian, 1,2 million people of which reside in Romania and 460 thousand in Slovakia.
It is noted that in spite of all the attempts of the EU and the Council of Europe to establish the regime of linguistic equality, the status of these languages within the EU and within the country of residence differs significantly. Thus, representatives of the individual minority language communities of related states which are members of the European Union, such as the Hungarians in Romania and Slovakia, the German-speaking population of South Tyrol, the Denmark population of Germany and the German-speaking population of Denmark, the Poles of the Czech Republic have the right and the ability to access the EU institutions and to receive answers to their own language, as they are the official languages of the EU. At the same time, representatives of other minority language communities, for example Russian Baltic countries, or Ukrainians in Poland and Slovakia, regardless of the number and regional concentration don’t have such opportunities.
In such a finding positives, is draw attention to the fact that the EU states linguistic rights are not fully protected, which prevents many linguistic communities to fully use their language in the European democratic process. The author concludes that the language regime of the EU based on the principle of linguistic diversity and language equality, but this equality on the practice applies only to official languages of the Member States but within this states such equality is only for those languages which have acquired official status for its national legislation.
Key words: language law, linguistic minorities, equality of languages, European integration, non-discrimination, cultural diversity.
