[Official version]

Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers on the application of the Charter by Slovenia

COUNCIL OF EUROPE
COMMITTEE OF MINISTERS

Recommendation RecChL(2004)3
of the Committee of Ministers
on the application of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages by Slovenia

(Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 9 June 2004
at the 887th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies)

The Committee of Ministers,

In accordance with Article 16 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages;

Having regard to the instrument of ratification submitted by Slovenia on 4 October 2000;

Having taken note of the evaluation made by the Committee of Experts on the Charter with respect to the application of the Charter by Slovenia;

Having taken note of the comments made by the Slovenian authorities on the contents of the Committee of Experts' report;

Bearing in mind that this evaluation is based on information submitted by Slovenia in its initial periodical report, supplementary information given by the Slovenian authorities, information submitted by bodies and associations legally established in Slovenia and the information obtained by the Committee of Experts during its “on-the-spot” visit,

Recommends that the authorities of Slovenia take account of all the observations of the Committee of Experts and, as a matter of priority:

1. reconsider its position on the Croatian language from the point of view of the Charter, identify the geographical areas in which Croatian is covered by the Charter and apply Article 7 in respect of this language; clarify the issue of the traditional presence of the Serbian language and of the Bosnian language in Slovenia in co-operation with the speakers of the respective languages;

2. apply Part II protection to German as a regional or minority language in Slovenia within the meaning of the Charter and strengthen in particular the provision of teaching of or in German as a regional or minority language, with priority for the Kocevje area;

3. ensure that the necessary integration of Romany speakers to allow their full participation in economic, social and political life also preserves their linguistic and cultural identity;
engage in a process of development of Romany as a written language, in particular through standardisation, preferably at European level, in close co-operation with the representatives of all the Roma communities present in Slovenia as well as with the other European States concerned, and strengthen the teaching of the Romany language at least at lower grades even while the standardisation process is under way;

4. take the necessary measures to encourage the use of the Hungarian language in the context of court proceedings and economic life in the ethnically mixed areas concerned;

5. establish a strategy to strengthen the use of the Italian language in the context of public administration and public services in the areas currently defined as “ethnically mixed”, and progressively extend the scope of the protection currently provided for the Italian language in the “ethnically mixed areas” to the other areas of the three municipalities concerned, to be identified in co-operation with the speakers, where there is a stable presence of Italian speakers;

6. make its periodical reports on the implementation of the Charter public.