The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted recommendations for the Netherlands and Slovenia on the basis of the evaluation reports of the Committee of Experts under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML). Among other things, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe demands that Slovenia recognises Croatian and Serbian as minority languages, which is unacceptable for Slovenia!
The Charter in Slovenia applies to Hungarian and Italian, which enjoy a high level of legal protection as co-official languages and in some areas as well as to Croatian, German, Romani and Serbian. One of the priority recommendations to the Slovenian authorities is to recognise Croatian, German and Serbian, which are traditionally spoken in Slovenia as minority languages, in order to strengthen their protection under the European Charter. In addition, the teaching of the Romani language and culture should be further developed, sufficient resources should be provided for the provision of television programs in Hungarian and Italian, and measures should be taken to raise public awareness of regional and minority languages in education and the media.
It should be emphasized that Croatian and Serbian are not spoken traditionally in Slovenia, as most speakers of these two languages immigrated to Slovenia after the Second World War or after the war in the Balkans following the collapse of Yugoslavia. Respected Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, only Slovenes who do not intend to discard their national identity will decide what the official language in Slovenia will be!
What does this mean for the future? First recommendations, then provisions and commitments? – No, that is out of the question!