An evaluation by the legal service of the Secretariat General of the European Commission published on Thursday justifies a number of Hungary’s concerns about the implementation guidelines of the contested Slovak state language act, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Balazs told MTI.
The foreign minister added that the evaluation provided a basis for Hungary to act on behalf of ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia who may be negatively affected by the new law.
The EC document – which was originally intended for internal use – will help Hungary protect ethnic kin if, for example, somebody is denied employment just because his Slovak is not considered good enough, Balazs said.
Concerning the actual issues the evaluation raised, Balazs said that the document criticised the law for applying “a far too wide range of fines” for violating the law. The document also suggests that Slovak health-care institutions should be obliged to employ staff that speak minority languages, Balazs said.
The law Slovakia with which it seeks to regulate the use of ethnic minority languages is much too stringent and attempts to deter people from using their mother tongue with exorbitant fines, Balazs said.
“If someone is worried about his job – with a law like that above his head – he will think twice before addressing his colleagues in Hungarian,” Balazs said.
The foreign minister added that he thought Slovakia would, in the long run, ease its language law, but not in the period leading up to the country’s general election.
Balazs also said that negotiations within the Hungary-Slovakia joint commission on ethnic minorities were continuous and that Hungary would initiate its next session early in 2010.
The OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Knut Vollebaek is likely to visit Hungary within the next two months to discuss the contested law.
