A/HRC/43/47/Add.2 Comments by the Government of Spain on the report of the Special Rapporteur on minority issues following his visit to Spain, 14 to 25 January 2019 1. Spain thanks the Special Rapporteur on minority issues for his visit. The open, standing invitation extended to the Special Procedures to visit our country reflects Spain’s conviction that such instruments can and must be useful mechanisms to help States meet the human rights commitments we have undertaken. The impartiality and independence of the Special Procedures, as well as the rigour of their work, guarantee their success in carrying out the mandate entrusted to them. 2. On the basis of our unwavering support for the Special Procedures and our defence of their independence, Spain feels compelled to register our disagreement with some of the conceptual categories used by the Rapporteur, Mr. De Varennes, as well as to address certain aspects of his Report which reflect an incomplete understanding of Spanish legislation and case law, and of its practical application. 3. Spain does not accept the concept of minority proposed by the Rapporteur in his 2019 Report (A/74/160) to the UN General Assembly, and which underpins the analysis contained in the Report on his mission to our country. 4. As the Rapporteur states in his 2019 Report, not even within the United Nations, nor in any other context, has it been possible to agree on a definition of the term minority. On the contrary, the concept has been subject to debate, and none of the numerous definitions put forward since the creation of the United Nations has met with consensus. 5. The definition proposed by Mr. de Varennes can now be added to this long list of attempts. The Rapporteur puts forward a merely numerical concept of minority (“any group of persons which constitutes less than half of the population in the entire territory of a State whose members share common characteristics of culture, religion or language, or a combination of any of these”). In its extreme simplicity, this definition takes no account whatsoever of context, including history, thus running the risk of reaching absurd conclusions, and fails to clarify the added value that the concept of minority contributes to the protection of the human rights of the individuals that comprise it. All of the above are compounded by doubts regarding how to determine the number of members of a supposed minority—its defining aspect—based on reliable data. For all these reasons, Spain reiterates its disagreement with the definition proposed by the Rapporteur and applied in the Report resulting from his mission to Spain in January 2019. 6. Sidestepping any analysis of our country’s history—an analysis which would explain the accurate description of it included in paragraph 8 of the Report on his mission (“a rich tapestry of languages, cultures and religions”)—the Rapporteur automatically applies the numerical definition of minority, which he himself has constructed, to a complex reality that does not easily fit into the narrow margins of the categories proposed. This simplistic approach does not allow for the fact that—to employ the same mathematical terminology used by the Rapporteur himself—the members of the so-called minorities make up the majority, which is the product of a long history of exchanges. There is no majority as such existing as a discrete and separate entity from the minorities mentioned by the Rapporteur; rather, the majority comprises these so-called minorities, in addition to many others. The members of the minorities are members of the majority. Broadly speaking, and looking beyond the situation in Spain, each individual has multiple identities, making it even harder to apply the simplified concept of minority proposed by the Rapporteur; this reduction to a single, dominant identity—with the aim of simplifying complex realities—could have a devastating impact on the freedom of individuals. 7. Regardless, majorities and minorities comprise individual bearers of human rights which are equal for all. As regards the Report’s references to religious minorities or majorities, we would question the added value of these concepts when freedom of religion and belief is guaranteed by the State. Similarly, the concept of linguistic minorities becomes dubious when the cultural rights of the people who speak a specific language are also protected. 2