Hans Heinrich Hansen receives South Tyrolean Minority Award

At a ceremony with around 200 guests in Tyrol Castle near Meran/Merano, “the cradle of Tyrol”, Hans Heinrich Hansen, the president of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) received the South Tyrolean Minority Award for the Federal Union of European Nationalities from governor Luis Durnwalder. The price is awarded for the second time and comes with a sum of 20,000 Euro.

“FUEN understood that peaceful Europe can only exist over the long term if peace reaches the most remote corners”, said Durnwalder. He mentioned South Tyrol today as an example of how minority conflicts can be solved – “peaceful and only with much, much patience”.

Governor Durnwalder directly addressed FUEN-president Hans Heinrich Hansen and thanked him personally for his commitment: “we here in South Tyrol hold you in high regard for your commitment, also for our region, for the Ladins as well as for all those minorities all over Europe. I know of the great voluntary engagement you invest and how many kilometres you travel through Europe acting for the minorities – and I speak on behalf of the minorities in Europe when I thank you for your achievements”, said Luis Durnwalder.

The award ceremony was attended not only by FUEN-vice-president Martha Stocker, FUEN-director Jan Diedrichsen, FUEN-project manager Judith Walde, but also by former president of FUEN Christoph Pan. Also present were former member of the European Parliament Michl Ebner who is now the president of the Chamber of Commerce in South Tyrol and his successor in Brussels, Herbert Dorfmann as well as many guests of honour.

Hans Heinrich Hansen thanked South Tyrol for this great honour and considered it as encouragement for the – often critical – monitoring of the minority policies of the European Union, the regions and states of Europe by the largest organisation of civil society representing the autochthonous minorities. At this moment FUEN has 90 members from 32 European countries.

In his acceptance speech Hans Heinrich Hansen said:

“Today 65 years ago in Paris Alcide De Gasperi and Karl Gruber signed a treaty making South Tyrol once for all part of the Italian state territory, but it also warranted autonomy. From 1992 this autonomy reached its final form. And so became reality what Karl Gruber in 1946 said about the treaty:

Implementation requires good will. This is a basic condition for all minority policy.

The good will of the nation states must be there in order to reach positive results in minority policy.

A condition for this is that there is a force on the other side, which is being noticed by politicians, who are often slow. This force is the minorities themselves. They are – like the South Tyroleans – sustained by an ardent, headstrong and powerful instinct of self-preservation out of love for their own culture, language, their own ways of expression, in short: from a sense of identity that is stronger and more profound than just incidentally being part of some region.
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Dear Mr Governor. You are “one of us”. You often have proven this, and as president of FUEN I have been able to come to you every time when I needed a helping hand.Also the history of FUEN clearly shows how committed the South Tyroleans have been involved to make FUEN to what it is today. Out of the 62 years of our existence for 15 years South Tyroleans have been chairing our organisation, namely Friedl Volgger, Karl Mitterdorfer and Christoph Pan. Nowadays Martha Stocker is continuing this work as a committed vice-president.”

Source: www.fuen.org