Minority reps discuss areas of shared concern
Ljubljana, 4 February - Representatives of the Slovenian minority in Italy, and the Italian and Hungarian minorities in Slovenia, held a meeting on Tuesday to discuss problems their communities face. While each has their own pressing issues, they also identified areas of shared concern.
"As we discussed various topics, we realised that all minorities face very similar problems and challenges that we have to tackle together," said Ferenc Horvath, who represents the Hungarian minority in the Slovenian parliament.
Marko Pisani, a member of the Slovenian minority in Italy who sits in the regional parliament of Friuli Venezia Giulia, was particularly interested in how minority MPs are elected to the Slovenian parliament, a system he said could serve as a model in other countries.
"This is very important for the preparation of our draft law on guaranteed representation in the Friuli Venezia Giulia regional council," he said after the meeting.
The Slovenian minority has for years been fighting for guaranteed seats in regional and national parliament, but several bills to that effect have stalled.
Pisani said this would be one of the issues discussed at a regional conference on the protection of the Slovenian minority in scheduled for May.
For the Italian minority in Slovenia, currently the biggest problem is the broadcast reach of Radio and Television Koper/Capodistria, a bilingual radio and TV programme of the national public broadcaster.
"In agreements that we wish to conclude in the coming months with Croatia and Italy, we want to improve the signal ... across the entire region that is home to the autochthonous Italian community, in particular in Croatia but also in Italy," said Felice Ziza, the MP for the Italian minority.