BRATISLAVA, May 25, (WEBNOVINY) — The Slovak Parliament approved a watered-down amendment to the law on the use of minority languages on Wednesday, when 78 lawmakers raised their hands in favor of the revision. Hungary’s Ambassador to Slovakia, Antal Heizer, watched the vote from a balcony in the assembly hall. According to the endorsed piece of legislation, the number of multi-lingual municipalities in Slovakia will not increase until 2021, although the quorum for using a minority language in official communication will sink from the current 20 percent to 15 percent. After lengthy talks, the ruling coalition agreed that no municipality will lose its multilingual status by 2031.
The approved bill stipulates that to receive bilingual status the given municipality has to exceed the 15-percent quorum in two censuses of the population in a row, the results of which will be published after July of this year. On the other hand, withdrawing the bilingual status from a municipality requires that the share of members of ethnic minorities in a municipality drops below 15 percent three times in a row. This mechanism was endorsed based on the amending proposal of Ordinary People Movement MPs. The author of the amendment, Deputy Prime Minister for Minorities Rudolf Chmel (MOST-HID), originally proposed simply cutting the quorum from 20 percent to 15 percent. However, the ruling coalition member MOST-HID party originally demanded a 10-percent quorum, before the 15-percent compromise approved by the Cabinet was achieved.
The Ordinary People also succeeded in incorporating a proposal in the law according to which it will not be obligatory to secure bilingual communication in health and social service facilities. Also, at the initiative of the Ordinary People, parliament voted to preserve the duty to have subtitles in minority TV broadcasts. Administrative procedures in minority languages will be limited only to municipalities with multilingual status.
The amendment, which was debated for two days in parliament, expands the right to the use of a minority language in official communication. Public organs will be obliged to answer verbal or written applications in both official and minority languages and provide forms to citizens in minority languages, too. Bilingual municipalities will issue bilingual official documents as of June 30, 2012. Offices will be able to have their agenda in both official and minority languages, but birth and death certificates will be exclusively in Slovak.
The names of municipalities at railway stations can be posted in minority languages as well, according to the new rules, but the Slovak name must come first and cannot be smaller than the one in the minority language. All names and announcements serving to inform the public, for example in shops, restaurants, bus and railway stations and at memorials, as well as commemorative plaques, can be in a minority language but the Slovak version has to be present.
The new version of the law introduces fines from EUR 50 to EUR 2,500 for violations of the law’s stipulations. The Cabinet Office will deal with administrative transgressions, but it first has to notify the transgressor. If the situation is not remedied in the set period of time, a fine will be imposed.
The multilingual quality concerns codified or standardized languages traditionally used on the territory of the Slovak Republic, including Hungarian, Czech, Bulgarian, Croatian, German, Polish, Romany, Ruthenian and Ukrainian. If President Ivan Gasparovic seals the bill, the amendment introducing the new rules will come into effect as of July 1, 2011.
The discussion to the amendment to the law on the use of minority languages took almost two days and around twenty deputies, most of them opposition, addressed the parliament. They strongly criticized the bill and described it as useless and dangerous. They connected it with Hungarization, establishment of language ghettos, federalization or excessive protection of minority language rights. According to opposition deputy Rafael Rafaj (SNS) the draft means preparing for a certain degree of federalism in Slovakia and later autonomy, with the final goal of secession. Its author, Rudolf Chmel however believes that his amendment opens space for use of German, Roma and Ruthenian languages.
SITA