Strasbourg, 12 March 2008 ECRML (2008) 1 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages APPLICATION OF THE CHARTER IN CROATIA 3rd monitoring cycle A. Report of the Committee of Experts on the Charter B. Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the application of the Charter by Croatia The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages provides for a control mechanism to evaluate how the Charter is applied in a State Party with a view to, where necessary, making Recommendations for improvements in its legislation, polic y and practices. The central element of this procedure is the Committee of Experts, established in accordance with Article 17 of the Charter. Its principal purpose is to report to the Committee of Ministers on its evaluation of compliance by a Party with i ts undertakings, to examine the real situation of the regional or minority languages in the State and, where appropriate, to encourage the Party to gradually reach a higher level of commitment. To facilitate this task, the Committee of Ministers adopted, in accordance with Article 15.1, an outline for the initial periodical report that a Party is required to submit to the Secretary General. The report should be made public by the State. This outline requires the State to give an account of the concrete app lication of the Charter, the general policy for the languages protected under its Part II and in more precise terms all measures that have been taken in application of the provisions chosen for e ach language protected under Part III of the Charter. The Committee‘s first task is therefore to examine the information contained in the initial periodical report for all the relevant regional or minority languages on the territory of the State concerned. The Committee‘s role is to evaluate the existing legal acts, regulations and real practice applied in each State for its regional or minority languages. It has established its working methods accordingly. The Committee gathers information from the respe ctive authorities and from independent sources within the State, so as to attempt to obtain a just and fair overview of the real language situation. After a preliminary examination of an initial periodical report, the Committee submits, if necessary, a num ber of questions to each Party to procure supplementary information from the authorities on matters it considers insufficiently developed in the report itself. This written procedure is usually followed up by an —on-the-spot visit“ of a delegation of the C ommittee to the respective State. During this visit the delegation meets bodies and associations whose work is closely related to the use of the relevant languages, and consults the authorities on matters that have been brought to its attention. This information- gathering process is designed to enable the Committee to better evaluate the application of the Charter in the State concerned. Having concluded this process, the Committee of Experts adopts its own report. This report is submitted to the Committee of Ministers together with suggestions for recommendations that the latter may decide to address to the State Party. 2 CONTENTS A. Report of the Committee of Experts on the application of the Charter in Croatia......4 Chapter 1. Background information ..................................................................................................4 1.1. The ratification of the Charter by Croatia ...........................................................................4 1.2. The work of the Committee of Experts...............................................................................4 1.3. Presentation of the regional or minority language situation in Croatia: up-date .................5 1.4. Particular issues arising in the evaluation of the application of the Charter in Croatia...............................................................................................................................5 Chapter 2. The Committee‘s evaluation in respect of Part II and Part III of the Charter ....................6 2.1. The evaluation in respect of Part II of the Charter..............................................................6 2.1.1 The situation concerning the Slovenian language ..............................................9 2.1.2 Istro-Romanian...................................................................................................9 2.2. The evaluation in respect of Part III of the Charter...........................................................10 2.2.1. Preliminary issue concerning the territorial scope of the undertakings entered into by Croatia under Part III................................................................10 2.2.2. Evaluation of the specific undertakings entered into by Croatia under Part III of the Charter................................................................................................11 Chapter 3. Conclusions ..................................................................................................................30 3.1. Conclusions of the Committee of Experts on how the Croatian authorities have reacted to the recommendations of the Committee of Ministers ......................................30 3.2. Findings of the Committee of Experts in the third monitoring round.................................33 Appendix I: Instrument of Ratification of the Republic of Croatia ....................................................35 Appendix II: Comments by the Croatian authorities ........................................................................37 B. Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the application of the Charter by Croatia.............................................................................41 3 A. Report of the Committee of Experts on the application of the Charter in Croatia adopted by the Committee of Experts on 21 September 2007 and presented to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in accordance with Article 16 of the Charter Chapter 1 Background information 1.1. The ratification of the Charter by Croatia 1. The Republic of Croatia signed and ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (hereafter referred to as —the Charter“) and deposited its instrument of ratification on 5 November 1997. The Charter entered into force for Croatia on 1 March 1998. 2. The instrument of ratification of Croatia is set out in Appendix I of this report. Croatia declared at the time of ratification that the regional or minority languages protected under Part III of the Charter were Italian, Serbian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Ruthenian and Ukrainian. 3. Article 15, paragraph 1 of the Charter requires States Parties to submit three-yearly reports in a form prescribed by the Committee of Ministers. The Croatian authorities presented their third periodical report to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe on 12 October 2006. 4. In its previous report (ECRML (2005) 3), the Committee of Experts of the Charter (hereafter referred to as —the Committee of Experts“) outlined particular areas where policies, legislation and practice could be improved. The Committee of Ministers took note of the report presented by the Committee of Experts and adopted recommendations (RecChL (2005)2) which were addressed to the Croatian authorities. These recommendations were adopted on 7 September 2005. 1.2. The work of the Committee of Experts 5. The third evaluation report is based on the information obtained by the Committee of Experts from the 3 rd periodical report of Croatia and the replies to an additional questionnaire submitted to the Croatian authorities in February 2007, as well as through interviews held with representatives of regional or minority languages in Croatia and government representatives during the on-the-spot visit, which took place from 2 to 4 May 2007. The Committee of Experts also received comments from bodies and associations legally established in Croatia, submitted pursuant to Article 16 paragraph 2 of the Charter. 6. In the present report, the Committee of Experts will firstly recall the outstanding issues raised in the 1st and 2 nd monitoring cycles regarding Croatia‘s compliance with the provisions of Part II and Part III of the Charter and then focus on the measures taken by the Croatian authorities to respond to its findings and to the recommendations addressed to the Croatian government by the Committee of Ministers. It will also highlight new issues detected during the 3 rd monitoring cycle. The Committee of Experts will, however, not comment on the provisions which were fulfilled in the 1 st and 2 nd monitoring cycles and for which no changes were reported which include many undertakings with regard to Italian and Hungarian. 7. This present report is based on the political and legal situation prevailing at the time of the Committee of Experts‘ third on-the-spot visit to Croatia, save as otherwise mentioned in the text of the report. 8. This present third report was adopted by the Committee of Experts on 21 September 2007. 4 1.3. Presentation of the regional or minority language situation in Croatia: up-date 9. Significant new positive developments since the previous report are - the creation of education advisers for regional or minority languages; - the completion of the first term of the local minority councils; - and a 33% increase in the budget allocated to the needs of national minorities since 2004. 10. These matters are dealt with in more detail below in