The Protection of Minorities and Minority languages. The Case of Friulian and Friulian Minority

Viola Vicario Master thesis MA Euroculture 
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2. Literary Review 
 
2.1 Primary sources
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 The European and international level: the first document on minorities and minority 
protection has been the First Arfè resolution (1981) of the European Council. Other 
important documents (in this case of the Council of Europe) are the European 
Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (Strasbourg, 5.11.1992)
2
 and the 
Framework Convention For the Protection of National Minorities (Strasbourg, 
01.02.1995)
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. Finally the main documents of the European Union on the theme are: 
the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (which never came into force), the 
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (Nice, 2000) and the Treaty 
on European Union
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 (Lisbon, 2009; in particular the article 2).  
 The Italian level: the first document which explicitly mention the minorities and 
their protection is the Italian constitution (art. 6). Then, for more than 50 years, there 
is no specific law (apart for the extra-constitutional protection of the few minorities 
with a king state which forced Italy to act in this way). Finally, between the end of 
the XX century and the beginning of the XXI century, Italy approved a general law 
for the protection of all the historical minorities in Italy (law 482/99
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) and a specific 
law for the protection of Slovene minority in Friuli-Venezia Giulia (law 38/2001). 
 The regional level: the first reference to the minorities is in the art. 3 of the Special 
Statute of the Region Friuli-Venezia Giulia (1963). There is a reference to the 
Friulian culture in the Regional law 68/81. While the Region approved, between the 
end of the XX century and the beginning of the XXI century, two specific laws for 
the protection of Friulian language and Friulian minority: the law 15/96
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 and the law 
29/07
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.  
 
 
 
                                                                   
1
 For more information about the primary sources, see the chapter 4 of this thesis. 
2
  http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/148.htm  
3
 http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Treaties/Html/157.htm 
4
 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2008:115:0013:0045:en:PDF 
5
 http://usefoundation.org/view/336 
6
 http://lexview-int.regione.fvg.it/fontinormative/xml/xmllex.aspx?anno=1996&legge=15#  
7
 http://lexview-
int.regione.fvg.it/fontinormative/xml/xmlLex.aspx?anno=2007&legge=29&fx=lex&db=DBC