Slovenian minority representatives critical of Austria's report
Klagenfurt, 21 June - Carinthian Slovenian Olga Voglauer, an MP in Austria's parliament, and the association of Carinthia's Slovenian jurists, have criticised Austria's latest report on the situation of the Slovenian minority, the country's public broadcaster ORF has reported.
Klagenfurt, Austria
Carinthian Slovenian and lawyer Rudi Vouk.
Photo: Nebojša Tejić/STA
File photo
Presented by Carinthia's Governor Peter Kaiser on Monday, the report notes the progress made regarding the situation of the Slovenian minority in this Austrian federal state.
Kaiser pointed out many measures to promote the use of Slovenian as one of the official languages and one of the languages used in schools.
On the other hand, ethnic Slovenian Voglauer, an Austrian MP for the Greens, said in a press release earlier this week that the minority's needs to step up multilingualism and equality of their language were only partially taken into account, including in education.
She expects Carinthia to be unequivocally on the side of the minority and recognise multilingualism as an added value and actual enrichment of the state, the ORF reported on its website.
The Association of Slovenian Lawyers in Carinthia is also critical, saying the report has been written uncritically. The timing of its release is also problematic, said the organisation's head Rudi Vouk.
Minority representatives are invited to the Carinthian Regional Assembly as late as in mid-summer, when this topic interests no one, he noted.
"The report is produced virtually without any discussion with the organisations representative of Carinthian Slovenians," Vouk told the Slovenian programme of the Austrian public broadcaster on Friday.
Article 7 of the Austrian State Treaty, which sets down the rights of Slovenians in Carinthia and Styria, is mentioned in the report only in a footnote. "Meaning the provision central to the minority's protection ... is not actually discussed at all."
Overall, the report is okay but uncritical, for example it mentions how many bilingual town limit signs have been set up so far, but fails to mention how many are still non-existent. A critical view should have been the aim of such a report, he said.
No significant progress has been achieved recently to improve the situation of the minority, with the exception of a deal on federal budget co-funding of bilingual kindergartens, Vouk added.