Promoting Human Rights and Minority Protection in South East Europe

The joint European Union and Council of Europe Project “Promoting Human Rights and Minority Protection in South East Europe” has an overall objective to improve access to rights for minorities at various levels of government in South East Europe based upon Council of Europe standards in this field and in particular on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML).

Three specific objectives will contribute in a complementary manner to achieving this overall objective:

1) To support Beneficiaries to enhance policies and capacity for the implementation of minority rights in selected municipalities in the region;

2) To support local governments to enhance policies and capacity for implementing recommendations on minority rights in practice in selected municipalities in the region;

3) Based on evidence from the local level coupled with recommendations from CoE monitoring reports, to provide support on legislative and policy changes at the central government level.

Within the first objective, the aim is to support selected municipalities in developing concrete responses to remove barriers to minority rights implementation at local level with the support of thematic grants coupled with regular on-site CoE expertise, both international and local. Thirty-six municipalities will be selected in an open procedure based on predefined criteria in the field of education, media, official use of languages and scripts, culture, non-discrimination, and effective participation of persons belonging to national minority in cultural, social and economic life and in public affairs.

On behalf of the Steering Committee of the Project, the secretariat of the Project announces:

The Call for expression of interest

The call is open to all multi-ethnic municipalities in the South East Europe (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” and Kosovo1).

The CoE project grants are limited to €18,000.00 per municipality. Selected municipalities shall contribute 10% to the overall project budget, which is therefore not to exceed €20,000.  Municipality may participate with funds available or through different in kind contribution (human resource, administrative and travel expenses).

The deadline for submission of application is 15 September 2014 (24h00 CET). All applications should be forwarded to the following e-mail address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. as Microsoft word files (.doc).

The applications will be evaluated by local evaluation committees based on the publicly available criteria. The selected applicants will receive assistance to draft projects if required.

The grants will be distributed in the beginning of December of 2014.

More information about the grant’s award procedure, the criteria and the application form are available in the Criteria for selection of municipalities and in the Application guide as well as the Application form, to be consulted and downloaded on http://pjp-eu.coe.int/web/minority-rights.

 

[1] This designation is without prejudice to positions on status and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence.