September 2005

<<back

print>>

FOUR MILLION EUROS FOR HUNGARIAN AND ITALIAN MINORITIES AND LANGUAGES IN SLOVENIA

September 2005 - The final draft of the Slovenian government’s budget has finally assigned four million euros for the protection of the Italian and Hungarian minorities, half a milion euros more than what it was initially budgeted. Italian and Hungarians, together numbering around 10.000, have representatives in the Slovenian parliament and are the only officially recognised minorities in the Constitution of Slovenia. The Constitution states that “within its own territory, Slovenia shall protect human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall uphold and guarantee the right of the autochthonous Italian and Hungarian ethnic communities”. As regards language issues, it seems that the Slovenian government is taking steps to implement the recommendations of the Committee of Ministers on the application of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages adopted in June 2004. The fourth point of the report recommended to “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”; the fifth point says that a strategy should be established “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”. However, some observers have pointed out over the last years that Slovenia only gives extensive rights to its small Italian and Hungarian minorities, which are legally classified as autochthonous, but not to the more numerous Kosovar Albanians, Bosnian Muslims, Serbs, Croats and others whose presence in Slovenia is primarily a legacy of former Yugoslavia, even though some small communities of Serbs and Croats have lived in modern-day Slovenia for centuries.

Thus, approximately 300.000 euros –40.000 more than what it was planned in the first draft- are aimed at funding the Comunità autogestite della nazionalità, a self-government body representing the Italian minority. The cultural activities of the two minorities will be covered by nearly 950.000 euros, and the initiatives to reinforce bilingualism in the areas where Hungarian and Italian are recognised will be granted more than a million and a half euros. With respect to such an important field as media, nearly one million euros have been confirmed to promote television programs reserved for the minorities in RTV Slovenia. Some Italian organisations and institutions such as Dramma Italiano, Edit and Centro de Ricerche Storiche will be funded with more than 235.000 euros, and 80.000 will help to found the Cultural Centre of the Italian Minority, which is based on the Hungarian counterpart that already exists. The government has also decided to invest some cash (45.000 euros) in the renovation of the newspaper “La Voce del Popolo”, the voice of the Italian minority for sixty years.