Bill on cultural rights of ex-Yugoslavian communities passes second reading

The key solution is the implementation of cultural programmes and projects of the members of the communities.

The aim is to make sure financing or co-financing of the projects through open calls will no longer be in the purview of the Public Fund for Cultural Activities, but the responsibility of the Culture Ministry.

Another measure the bill would introduce is to grant the government council dedicated to the communities and their issues the status of a permanent government consultative body.

The coalition parties have argued that after becoming independent, Slovenia assumed responsibility for the protection of the rights of national communities that live in its territory and it is high time to put this into law.

In the committee stage a provision was added under which children from these communities would be able to learn their mother tongue in school.

But it has proved divisive amidst complaints by conservative opposition parties that this would put members of ex-Yugoslav communities in a privileged position and was rejected today in a unanimous vote.

New Slovenia (NSi) even formally requested a consultative referendum on the issue. "This is a step in the wrong direction," NSi president Matej Tonin said about the language provision earlier this week, adding that "Slovenia has met all its obligations to the nations of the former Yugoslavia - with interest."

The referendum motion will be on the agenda of the next plenary prior to the final reading of the bill.

In Wednesday's debate, coalition MPs rejected the notion perpetrated by the opposition that the classes in student's mother tongue would mean teachers would have to learn a language such as Albanian.

Sara Žibrat of the Freedom Movement also accused the NSi of jumping on the issue to mobilise its voters ahead of the EU election in June.

NSi's Jože Horvat, however, dismissed this as disingenuous and framed the bill in the context of the Constitution, which protects the rights of the Italian and Hungarian minorities and the Roma, but not other ethnic communities.

He said the bill was "not rooted in the Slovenian Constitution and will sooner or later make its way to the Constitutional Court and the ballot box."