Federal Union of European Nationalities FUEN HISTORY II

The failure concerns the inability of the international community, which has not succeeded in finding peaceful solutions and emphatically asserting these by way of negotiation while this was still possible, just as much as the arrogant and inhuman tactics of a head of state who, at all costs and irrespective of the consequences, persists in adhering to the instruments of ethno-nationalist ideologies and ethnic cleansing by force of arms.

In the last days of the 20th century we have been made conscious of how distant the vision is from reality that FUEN is based on, the vision of peaceful coexistence of majority and minority populations, national minorities and smaller language groups in Europe.

Today, on FUEN's 50th anniversary, we face a similar kind of orientation as when FUEN was founded. Whether French intellectuals are right in referring to the Balkan conflict as Europe in the year 1 (A. Glucksmann) or "L'Europe commence à Sarajewo" (A. Finkielkraut), shall remain open. The fact is: we are in the middle of a reflection and design process about which political outfit Europe should put on tomorrow.

It is twice as difficult for us than it was for our founders as there are now no Iron Curtain and contrasting weltanschauung that permit us to form enemy concepts and take up positions which cannot be analysed or have to be analysed with clear truths.

Apart from this, we cannot orient ourselves to the recent past. Europe's outfit as the community of sovereign nation states presumably and finally belongs in a museum cabinet for rarities in political history. Its significance in practical politics is crumbling: the keywords globalisation with multinational and international controlling instruments on the one hand, on the other local and regional autonomy, inter-state forms of cooperation, as well as a growing net of internationally binding legal and political instruments may suffice in showing the real loss of significance and increasing relativisation of the form 'nation state'. What really happens in day-to-day life is: that relics of a nation-state era exist in heads, in social structures and state institutions, that even ethno-nationalistic models of conflict continue to be fostered and are nourished. In Europe, there are still elements of a cosy to aggressive nationalism perceptible on all sides, and we would be well-advised to put them in the right place: they belong to the collective consciousness of the peoples, there they should be preserved and conserved, but they are-and this cannot be said clearly enough-to be detached from the bonds with army and violence and from collective identification with states and their power apparatus.

Members of minorities are also not immune to nationalistic patterns of thought.

Europe's history and civilisation are also made of other fabrics with a future, ones we can use to design a new political outfit. We should orient ourselves to these. This would give Churchill's "Europe arise" after the Second World War an optimistic resonance, that can also be transferred to our day. Despite all the set-backs, we can, with good reason, join in the enthusiasm of witnessing and actively forming this new Europe.

As members of national minorities and individual, small language and cultural communities we are, as it were, the prototypes for tomorrow's Europe; and so we should be the first to take up this enthusiasm; many of our standard practices should also become standard practice for the majority population: multilingual practice and the ability, for example, to build cultural, intellectual and political bridges between various cultures.

Europe arise: that is the heritage of today given to FUEN by its founding generation and that is the red-hot issue.

Let's begin work on a Europe built on 4 pillars:

- the fundamental, secularised values of Christian tradition as they have been reflected in the binding general human rights, in the democratic and constitutional institutes and structures,

- the enhancement of these values with rights and protection directives to guarantee free and unobstructed development for peoples and nationalities and protect and promote those among them who are threatened,

- the reintroduction of the great story of our continent, the story of lingual, cultural diversity and ethnic identities, of their free and unobstructed development and creative competition of the mind and mentalities with each other.

- this is the place to remember the great words of the Danish theologian and poet Grundtvig 'FRIHED SÅVEL FOR LOKE SOMVEL SOM FOR THOR', an appeal for freedom for contradictions, an appeal to make the idea of tolerance and respect for others more current that is inherent in our consciousness, that we are all only in possession of part-truths and that there are no and must never be absolute and sole truths. This is the true wealth of Europe which has again to be filled with life.

I would now like to pronounce FUEN's 44th anniversary conference in Haderslev open.

... fifty years ago 1949 - 1999:
The point of a struggle
by Joseph Martray, Founder and first Secretary General of FUEN

Martray-Gruppe
From left to right Joseph Martray, Breton, Founder and first Secretary
General of the FUEN, José - Antonio de Aguire; Charles Plisnier, Wallon,
first President of the FUEN und André Voisin.

On the initiative of the Union des Fédéralistes de Bretagne, an astonishing congress took place at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris on 9 and 10 October 1949. Exactly four months after the United Nations General Assembly had adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, several hundred representatives of 'European Regions' gather in the same place. Ethnic groups without a state or within a state also proclaim their rights: the rights of peoples that are ultimately the consequence of, or far more the basis for, human rights.

Indeed an astonishing assembly due to the unexpected number of participants from the capital of Jacobinism, from Bavaria, Scotland, Friuli, Walloon, Swiss cantons, Frisia, etc., and groups who had never before taken their places on an international stage to unite and declare their will for existence . . . not forgetting the Catalan and Basque exiles and two other representatives, also in exile, from a region already referred to at that time as being 'behind the Iron Curtain'. Such an unexpected success for everyone was that the French government, at the last minute, sent one of its young state secretaries to attend ... François Mitterand.

As the Breton organiser asked to make the opening speech, I first underscored the point of this initiative, which-and I can say this today-was set up with considerable anxiety and uncertainty as regards the results and, in doing so, emphasised three principles.

'The first principle is that Europe must not just become a meeting of the states it consists of; it has to be the power of release, and nothing of the natural diversity it comprises, must be strange to it . . . The second principle is that ethnic groups and regions must be promoted without any kind of aggressive spirit. We do not want to set up barriers, but want to unfold this wealth, without which Europe would be impoverished . . . The third principle is that only total federalism can provide a complete, progressive and final solution to the problem of European regions. Only federalism can guarantee the proportion of sovereignty the states are entitled to and the proportion the regional ethnic groups are entitled to.' And I closed with the sentence: 'It is our job to act so that the hour of Europe is the hour of emancipation, the hour of true freedom for us as regions.'

The hour of Europe? At that time, it seemed to lie far in the distance and we had no idea of the difficulties that would occur during the course of the coming decades to delay this or even prevent it. Of course, eleven months before, from 7 to 9 May 1949, the glorious meeting had taken place in The Hague, opened by Winston Churchill, and the Council of Europe was founded in August 1949 as a consultative body. But the first real European institutions were not to follow until much later. The ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community) with only six countries as members was not established until 1952, Euratom (European Atomic Energy Commission) and, primarily, the EEC (European Economic Community), did not see the light of day until 1 January 1958. Not until fifty years after this congress of European regions did the European Union arise, after the difficult ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, and the common currency begin its career as a truly federal instrument, while we thought things would happen much faster.

Apenrade
1979: 30th anniversary in Åbenrå

But as this is a historic issue oriented to establishing a united Europe, time is less important than the matter itself and the-political, institutional, economic, cultural-content of this Union. Will the federal hopes expressed in the Palais Chaillot be fulfilled, or have we at least come nearer to them? And what role have we played in this development, each of course within his own methods and possibilities, but in the spirit of the constituent congress in April 1949?

Federal Europe or a Europe of national states? This issue has hardly abated. It has been marked by a series of failures, chiefly the failure of the EDC (European Defence Community) in 1954. But what does Europe look like on its fiftieth birthday in the field we refer to as internal federalism that was the reason for our meeting in Palais Chaillot and, six months later, for our meeting in Versailles? What does the respect for the rights of peoples look like who, in addition to the states, form the being of Europe?

The Europe of 1999 cannot be accused of totally ignoring regional realities embodying everyday issues when one considers that, before, it was split up into states, our old continent knew completely different divisions that were closer to the citizens and were called Brittany, Normandy, Aquitania, Lombardy, Flanders, Bavaria, Catalonia, Schleswig, etc. Incidentally, since the Maastricht Treaty there has been a regional committee at the European institutions whose influence is indubitably modest, but which indicates a certain tendency. And finally, the regions are more and more obviously present in Brussels and are voicing their opinions alongside the states: thanks to us, these regional realities have asserted themselves at the Council of Europe, as shown by the passing of the European Charter on Regional and Minority Languages by the Assembly of Ministers.

In any case, the great change as compared to 1949 is that regionality is not only recognised in all large states; we are also seeing its strength grow, something which is irreversible as we all know. The latest example is the British one with autonomy for Scotland and Wales from 1 January 2000. The federal status that Germany was committed to after defeat in 1945 has become a true opportunity for the country and, is without doubt, the reason for the 'German economic miracle' ...

Versailles
1989: 40th anniversary in Versailles

But what is really a region in the true sense of the word, that must not be confused with a simple structure for economic planning. We speak of an 'ethnic region' derived from the Greek term ethnos that does not mean 'race' as is occasionally maintained, but 'a people'. I would like to refer here to the dictionary of philosophy by Paul Fouquié in which the word 'ethnic' is defined as follows: 'technical neologism in sociology based on the Greek ethnos-people. A group of individualsl, possibly belonging to various races and nations, who are united by a common civilisation.' A civilisation, that means a history, a lifestyle, a culture and, often, a language. In 1949, we hesitated with the vocabulary and chose the more general term 'nationalities'. It has since been made more precise as 'ethnic group' and I agree: on one condition, that the true meaning of the word 'ethnic' is adhered to with the total absence of any reference to race, which is not contained in the Greek origin of the term.

The term 'minority' remains and has two clearly different realities: the minorities identifying themselves with a home country they have become, or feel, detached from; and the minorities living isolated within the culture of a dominating state and having no intention of attaching themselves to another state. The solution remains the same in either case, as we suggested in 1949: a federal Europe of regions.

And would that be the end of states? At the most, it would be the end of Unitarian and centralised nation-states for which France provided the example for a long time; the France of Louis XIV-l'état, c'est moi-the France of the revolution, of Napoleon Bonaparte and the united and indivisible republic. We had to wait for General de Gaulle to hear a different voice, but one which was unfortunately not heard: 'hundreds of years of endeavour for centralisation are no longer appropriate. Regional activities constitute the economic power of tomorrow.' (Speech at Lyons, 24 April 1968).

Regions, ethnic communities, minorities no longer endeavour to split themselves off, even to found new states or correct the borders of current states, but strive to assert a perception of power in Europe based on the subsidiarity principle-that has incidentally been included in the Maastricht Treaty-to reconstruct the natural order of things, in which man and the communities he develops in, retain the upper hand over the state.

Thus, it was a great thought that we set in motion in the Palais de Chaillot in 1949 by recalling the existence and dynamism of these small communities, regions, ethnic minorities, etc. whose diversity embodies not just the uniqueness, but the wealth, of our old continent. It is consequently the job of Europe to secure their protection and development institutionally. That is the point of the struggle we initiated 50 years ago.

50 years of work with European minorities:
FUEN 1949-1999
by Dr. Jørgen Kühl Dr. Kuhl

In late autumn in 1949 in Versailles near the French capital, an organisation of minority associations and regionalists was founded which some years later took on the name Federal Union of European Nationalities. In 1999, FUEN can now look back on half a century as an organisation representing the interests of and promoting minorities and nationalities in Europe.

To mark this anniversary, the complete history of FUEN is currently being researched. The research project will result in the publication of a book at the end of the year that will contain approx. 250 pages plus numerous photographs and other illustrations to document the history and development of FUEN.

The work will be based on a very first analysis of the complete FUEN archives. Numerous other publications and interviews with people who have experienced these events will form the foundations. The FUEN Presiding Committee has provided access to all records between 1949 and 1999. This means that the work will be chiefly based on primary sources.

Skadegard, Johannsen
From left to right: Jes Schmidt, German in Denmark
and former FUEN-Vicepresident, Jytte Skadegård,
Svend Johannsen, former FUEN-Vicepresident and
Povl Skadegård, former FUEN-Secretary General.

It is possible to divide the history of FUEN into several phases of development. The beginnings of the organisation are rooted in the European unity movement of post-war years when federal and regional groupings played a major role. The organisation, resolved at the first congress in Paris in April 1949 and founded at the second congress in Versailles in November 1949, was an element of European thinking. The term 'federal' was consequently not an original characteristic of the union's structure but has to be understood in the light of the predominant federal objectives of a united but decentrally structured Europe. Until the early sixties, FUEN remained a member of the Europe movement and had - like many other associations with the same objectives - a seat in the European Union.

The union was founded in two steps. Structuring also required several attempts. After the Union of Minorities and Regions was simultaneously founded with a Federal Council of Minorities and Regions, the Secretary General was located first in Paris, in the building of the French regionalists La Féderation. Although many meetings of the Presiding Committee were held in initial years, it soon became evident that the Union at that time would be doomed to failure if a new wave of enthusiasm could not be kindled. At the Federal Council meeting in Leeuwarden in 1950, this led to a resolution to convene another, third congress of minorities and ethnic groups in Copenhagen in 1951.

In Copenhagen, the Danish representative in the Federal Council, Jørgen Kiesbye Møller, founded an Oreganisationskomite with Povl Skadegård, among others, as a member. When Kiesbye Møller was appointed upper Danish judge in Greenland, Skadegård took over his seat on the Federal Council and, as chairman of the committee, organised the successful Copenhagen Congress of 1951 with a handful of committed Danes. Financial funds were secured then by the Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs at that time Ole Bjørn Kraft, who had been Honorary President of the Union since Versailles without ever having actively worked for the organisation.

Lemoine, Arquint
Pierre Lemoine (l.), co-founder, former president
with Romedi Arquint, present president of the FUEN.

The congress in the Danish parliamentary building Christiansborg took on vital significance. New directions were resolved and an idealistic activisim began to develop. A major decision was to establish an independent information office for minorities managed by Per Thaulow from Denmark that worked independently alongside the Secretary General until 1954. In particular, the office published the magazine Small Nations, whose contributions were conceived as an initial step towards achieving a manual of European minorities. At the same time, however, the fundamental idea of the Union changed. The Federal Council lost importance, the regionalists and federalists gradually left the Union but the close connection with the European Union initially remained. Shortly afterwards, Skadegård became Secretary General of the Union that took on its current German name, meaning Federal Union of European Nationalities in 1954, while the English version still contained the extension 'and Regions' for a number of years.

Skadegård introduced a reorganisation and amendments to the statutes and, with his wife Jytte, remained a major force behind the work. Several new member associations joined and FUEN attempted to gain pan-European significance. Despite repeated applications for an observatory status to the Council of Europe founded in 1949, this important international recognition was rejected again and again until it was finally obtained in 1989.

The era of Skadegård lasted until the early seventies. It was marked by idealism on the part of the Skadegårds couple, but also by a continual financial crisis that could ultimately only be solved when the associations of the Germans in Denmark and the Danes in Germany together resolved to pay the debts of FUEN. Added to this, the budget was secured with these two minority groups, the Southern Tyroleans and the Sudeten Germans contributing the largest amounts. Mitterdorfer, K.

In Skadegård's years, the German exiles were also included in FUEN. In the other direction, Povl Skadegård also conducted projects with associations of exiles with whom he upheld a strong relationship. During this time, Skadegård's developed from being a very national Dane into an internationalist of conservative convictions, who now also involved himself with the issues of the Sudeten Germans. The importance of the Skadegårds must not be underestimated. Without their involvement and commitment, FUEN would probably no longer exist. They invested their own energy organising - particularly Jytte Skadegård as head of organisation - congresses and undertook study trips to the various minority regions not only in the West, they were in Eastern Europe many times.

After the death of Jytte Skadegårds, Povl Skadegård retired from his office as Secretary General in the early seventies. The Union faced new orientation. Again it was the minorities in the German and Danish border areas who played a major role. Numerous attempts were made to form a more effective organisation and establish a sound financial basis. In this respect, FUEN was once more striving more for recognition within Europe and at the Council of Europe. However, a financial demand was never made. Similarly, the attempts to continue the tradition of the Congress of Nationalities met with little success initially. The Congress of Nationalities in 1985 in Geneva did not have the signalling effect hoped for. Later, the Congress on Nationalities was still named as such, but FUEN was an organisation and, despite clearly expressed ambitions, could not function as a continuation of the Congress on Nationalities. In addition to this, a certain competitive situation arose with a number of other international organisations who had devoted themselves to the minority issue. The Celtic and Southwestern European minorities established their own forums. A new organisation was also financially promoted by European Parliament: the European Bureau for Lesser Used languages in Dublin, while FUEN's attempts to obtain the respective funds remained fruitless. Jorgensen, H.R.

With the political turnarounds between 1989 and 1991 in Central and Eastern Europe, FUEN gained new impetus. Despite the predominant enthusiasm, the anniversary congress in 1989 FUEN seemed to have reached the limits of its ability. Only 2 years later at the congress in Budapest, new objectives were defined. The Eastern European challenge was overcome by establishing contact with those minorities who had only temporarily or not at all been integrated in the work. However, one point must be emphasised here: FUEN never lost sight of the issue of minorities in Eastern Europe. FUEN repeatedly launched initiatives to establish contact and seek cooperation.

After 1990, numerous new associations became members of FUEN. Particularly German and Hungarian minorities quickly submitted applications for admission as well as many other minorities who joined FUEN.

The organisation of this expansion placed new demands on the structures. This is why FUEN had to professionalise its structures in the mid-nineties, which only becomes possible with a sound financial basis. In this respect, institutional subsidies from the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, South Tyrol and Trento played a significant role. Added to this, the Hermann-Niermann Foundation promoted the Secretary General. Despite these supportive funds, however, it must be said that in 1999, FUEN still does not possess such a strong structure that it could be active for minorities in the degree it desires. Since 1949, the financial scope has consequently been defining the framework conditions for FUEN. Nickelsen, A.

The tasks of FUEN today are far more numerous and far more complex than ever. The importance of this minority organisation is greater than 10, 20, 30 or 50 years ago. It now enjoys international recognition and its ideas, suggestions and expertises are being listened to more and more frequently. The decisive step towards this recognition came with the compilation of a draft convention (the so-called Bolzano Draft) that was unanimously resolved at the 1992 congress in Cottbus and was subsequently submitted to the European institutions and numerous foreign ministries. In this respect, FUEN is continuing in its endeavours to attain acceptance of pan-European minority rights. During the period of FUEN President Matuschka in 1956, the first 'Main principles of rights for minority groups' were resolved. These principles were compiled with financial assistance from the Federal Foreign Office in Bonn, revised since the mid-sixties and a new version was passed in 1967 in Åbenra. At the Congress on Nationalities in 1985 in Geneva a new version was passed. The interest in international legislation for ethnic groups is consequently one of the points most persistently pursued by FUEN, and today, in the light of hostile disputes in Europe, has lost none of its urgency or topicality.

The Federal Union of
European Nationalities
An Outline History 1949-1999
Dr. Jørgen Kühl

MA, PhD Dr. Jørgen Kühl
Director of the Danish Institute of Border Region Studies
Persillegade 6
DK - 6200 Aabenraa
jk@ifg.dk
http://www.ifg.dk

Research topics:
History; contemporary history; ethnicity, nationalism, and minority studies; border conflict studies

Languages spoken: Danish; English; German
CV: http://www.ifg.dk/en/medarbejdere/joergen/cv_en.htm
Publication list:
http://www.ifg.dk/en/medarbejdere/joergen/pub_en.htm

© INSTITUT FOR GRÆNSEREGIONSFORSKNING
ISBN 87-90163-84-2
2000

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