Language Research

As a member of the UN (1992) Slovenia has ratified the following:

Convention on the Prohibition and Punishment of Genocide

International Agreement on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Convention on the Elimination of all Aspects of Racial Discrimination

UNESCO - Convention against Discrimination in Education.

Slovenia is also obliged to respect "the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious or Language Minorities" and other commitments accepted within OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). As a member of CEI (Central European Initiative) Slovenia adopted the "Instrument for the Protection of Ethnic Minorities". (1994 in Torino)

As a member of the Council of Europe, Slovenia ratified the European Convention for the Protection on National Minorities on March 25, 1998, and enacted it on July 1, 1998.

European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages signed on July 3, 1997.

Slovenia's international legal obligations to protect minorities are established by bilateral agreements such as the "Osimo treaty" between Slovenia and Italy and the "Agreement between the Republic of Slovenia and the Republic of Hungary."

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Updated (January 2001)

The European Charter of Regional and Minority Languages came into force in Slovenia in January 1, 2001.

The fact that there were no specific measures for Roma minority has been justified by means of the application mutatis mutandis of Article 7, which is a declaration of principles and intentions.

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Updated (July 2004)

THE REPORT OF LANGUAGE EXPERTS FROM THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE

The Committee of Experts of the Council of Europe has submitted its first monitoring report on the implementation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) in Slovenia.

Despite some criticism, especially regarding the lack of provided information on the implementation of the Charter and the treatment of Roma, the Committee in general expressed satisfaction at the situation in the country.

Slovenia applied the more specific and legally binding Part III of the Charter to the Italian and Hungarian languages. It also signed Part II of the Charter, granting the linguistic rights and recognition in general, which applies to Romany. However, not only these three languages are spoken in Slovenia. The experts encourage the Slovenian government to evaluate the situation of Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian and to include autochthonous German-speakers under Part II of the Charter.

The Committee approves of Slovenia's legal framework, which has already provided a certain standard of minority language protection for Italian and Hungarian speakers. The Constitution also guarantees specific rights for these minority languages by granting them co-official status in certain areas¹, although the practical implementation is not always fulfilled. The main discrepancies were detected for example at courts, where it is often not possible to use Hungarian because of judges' insufficiency in the language.

Despite its co-official status, Italian can almost never be used in local administration or written communication, in public services and one instance even reported of state officials refusing to hold a wedding ceremony solely in Italian.

On the other hand outstanding praise was given to originality and success of educational concepts, as in the case of a bilingual educational model for Hungarian speaking children in the Prekmurje Region. This model was introduced in 1959, and it makes bilingual classes mandatory also for Slovene students.

Compliments were also paid to Italian schools where traditionally Italian is the language of instruction. The schools are also open to those not belonging to the Italian-speaking community.

The Committee strongly recommended that the Slovenian government should in addition ratify those articles of the charter concerning teaching of Italian and Hungarian at the primary school level.

Source: Eurolang News, Brussels, June 30, 2004, by Simone Klinge, http://www.eurolang.net/news.asp?id=4656

¹In the areas where Italian and Hungarian speakers live in significant numbers

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