Motion for a resolution | Doc. 14656 | 16 October 2018

The rights of the German minority in Romania

Signatories: Mr Frank HEINRICH, Germany, EPP/CD ; Ms Doris BARNETT, Germany, SOC ; Ms Sybille BENNING, Germany, EPP/CD ; Mr Peter BEYER, Germany, EPP/CD ; Mr Marco GATTI, San Marino, EPP/CD ; Mr Jürgen HARDT, Germany, EPP/CD ; Ms Gabriela HEINRICH, Germany, SOC ; Mr Giorgi KANDELAKI, Georgia, EPP/CD ; Mr Filippo LOMBARDI, Switzerland, EPP/CD ; Mr Killion MUNYAMA, Poland, EPP/CD ; Mr Zsolt NÉMETH, Hungary, EPP/CD ; Mr Andreas NICK, Germany, EPP/CD ; Mr Ulrich OEHME, Germany, NR ; Mr Pieter OMTZIGT, Netherlands, EPP/CD ; Mr Joseph O'REILLY, Ireland, EPP/CD ; Mr Axel SCHÄFER, Germany, SOC ; Ms Elisabeth SCHNEIDER-SCHNEITER, Switzerland, EPP/CD ; Mr Tritan SHEHU, Albania, EPP/CD ; Mr Michael SVENSSON, Sweden, EPP/CD ; Mr Volker ULLRICH, Germany, EPP/CD ; Mr Egidijus VAREIKIS, Lithuania, EPP/CD ; Mr Emanuelis ZINGERIS, Lithuania, EPP/CD

This motion has not been discussed in the Assembly and commits only those who have signed it.

For centuries, an autochthonous German minority, which comes under the scope of the 1995 Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (ETS No. 157), has settled in Romania. Romania has ratified the Convention.

Since a member of the German minority was elected Romanian president in 2014, and increasingly over the last months, this minority has faced systematic attacks and targeted collective insults by high-ranking representatives of the PSD governing party and media close to the government which have potential to permanently damage the social peace. The chairman of the Education Committee, former minister Liviu Pop, called the self-organisation of the German community in Romania a “Nazi organisation” in a public interview in August. In addition to this, the country’s former Minister of Finance and advisor to the government, Mr Darius Vâlcov, published a video on Facebook which uses a photo montage incorporating National Socialist symbols to alienate the Romanian president who is a member of the German minority. The intensity and frequency of the collective defamations from government circles, and the failure of others to distance themselves publicly from these, are cause for concern.

The Parliamentary Assembly should investigate the implementation of the protection of national minorities in Romania and urgently call on Romania to comply with its duties to protect national minorities – in this case to protect the German minority.