Strasbourg, 26 July 2019 MIN-LANG (2019) PR 6 EUROPEAN CHARTER FOR REGIONAL OR MINORITY LANGUAGES Sixth periodical report presented to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe in accordance with Article 15 of the Charter CROATIA GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA SIXTH REPORT BY THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA ON THE APPLICATION OF THE EUROPEAN CHARTER FOR REGIONAL OR MINORITY LANGUAGES ZAGREB, June 2019 SADRŽAJ 1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 2 2. PART I ............................................................................................................................... 3 2.1. Legislation .................................................................................................................. 3 2.2. Action Plan for the Implementation of the Constitutional Act on the Rights of National Minorities for the Period 2011 – 2013 .................................................................... 4 2.3. Implementation of the Recommendations of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (RecChL(2015)2) ................................................................................... 20 2.4. 2011 Census in Croatia ............................................................................................ 21 3. PART II– Objectives and principles ................................................................................ 23 3.1. Article 7, paragraph (1) ............................................................................................ 23 3.2. Article 7, paragraph (3) ............................................................................................ 25 3.3. Article 7, paragraph (4) ............................................................................................ 25 3.4. Situation concerning the Slovene language ............................................................. 28 3.5. Protection of minority and regional vernaculars as intangible cultural heritage ...... 29 3.6. Situation concerning the Romani language .............................................................. 29 3.7. Harmonisation of the statutes of self-government units and promotion of the equal official use of minority languages ........................................................................................ 31 4. PART III ........................................................................................................................... 35 4.1. Territorial scope of the application of the undertakings entered into by the Republic of Croatia under Part III of the Charter ................................................................................ 35 4.2. Article 8 – Education ................................................................................................ 36 4.3. Article 9– Judicial authorities .................................................................................. 62 4.4. Article 10 – Administrative authorities and public services .................................... 67 4.4.1. Article 10, paragraph (1) .................................................................................... 67 Minority language use in state administration bodies ...................................................... 67 4.4.2. Article 10, paragraph (2) .................................................................................... 68 Minority language use in local and regional self-government units ................................ 68 4.4.3. Article 10, paragraph (3) .................................................................................... 71 Minority language use in proceedings conducted by legal persons vested with public powers .............................................................................................................................. 71 4.4.4. ID cards in the languages and scripts of national minorities .............................. 71 4.5. Article 11 – Public media ......................................................................................... 73 4.5.1. Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT) ........................................................................ 73 4.5.2. Fund for the Promotion of Pluralism and Diversity of Electronic Media .......... 80 4.6. Article 12 – Cultural activities and institutions ........................................................ 81 4.6.1. Libraries ............................................................................................................. 83 4.6.2. Archives, museums and galleries ....................................................................... 93 4.6.3. Performing arts and amateur culture and art ...................................................... 97 4.7. Article 13 – Economic and social life .................................................................... 101 4.8. Article 14 – Transfrontier exchanges ..................................................................... 101 4.8.1. Cultural cooperation agreements and programmes .......................................... 101 5. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 102 6. Appendices ..................................................................................................................... 104 1 1. INTRODUCTION (1) Pursuant to Article 15 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (hereinafter: the Charter), the Republic of Croatia hereby submits the 6th Periodical Report on the Application of the Charter (hereinafter: the Report), developed in accordance with the Revised outline for three-yearly periodical reports (CM(2009)42) as adopted at the 1054th meeting of the Ministers' Deputies of the Council of Europe on 15 April 2009. (2) The previous (Fifth) Periodical Report by the Republic of Croatia on the Application of the Charter, from November 2013, included data for the three-year period 2009-2011 as well as part of data for 2012, whereas the Sixth Periodical Report includes data for the period 2013-2016 as well as data for 2017 and 2018 for the purpose of aligning the monitoring cycles for the Charter and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (hereinafter: Framework Convention), pursuant to the letter by the Council of Europe Secretariat of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 10 December 2018 enclosed with the Decisions of the Ministers’ Deputies adopted at the Committee of Ministers’ meeting of 28 November 2018 and the Appendix to the Decisions. (3) The following bodies cooperated in developing the Report: Ministry of Justice, relating to minority language use before judicial authorities; Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, relating to international cooperation and political matters; Ministry of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Crafts, relating to economic matters; Ministry of Demography, Family, Youth and Social Policy, relating to social welfare matters; Ministry of Culture, relating to cultural activities; Ministry of the Interior, relating to the issuance of documents in minority languages; Ministry of Public Administration, relating to minority language use in state administration bodies, bodies of local and regional self-government units and legal persons vested with public powers; Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, relating to the erection of bilingual traffic signs, in the Croatian language and Latin script and in the language and script of a national minority; Ministry of Science and Education, relating to educational matters; Office of Human and National Minority Rights of the Croatian Government, relating to international cooperation and political matters; Council for National Minorities, the umbrella body of national minorities at the state level Agency for Electronic Media, relating to public and private media; Croatian Bureau of Statistics Croatian Radiotelevision, relating to the public media; The invitation to cooperate in preparing the 6th Report was also extended to the following associations of national minorities, to which the provisions of the Chapter apply pursuant to the declaration contained in the instrument of ratification of the Republic of Croatia: Italian Union – Unione Italiana 2 Serbian Cultural Society “Prosvjeta” Democratic Community of Hungarians of Croatia, Union of Czechs in the Republic of Croatia, Union of Slovaks, Union of Ruthenians in the Republic of Croatia, Ukrainian Community in the Republic of Croatia. 2. PART I 2.1. Legislation (4) There were no changes in legislation regulating equal official use of the languages and scripts of national minorities in the period from 2013 to 2018, i.e. the said right continues to be governed by the Constitutional Act on the Rights of National Minorities (Official Gazette "Narodne novine" No. 155/02, 47/10, 80/10 and 93/11, hereinafter: Constitutional Act), the Act on the Use of the Languages and Scripts of National Minorities in the Republic of Croatia (OG 51/00 and 56/00 – correction), and the Instructions for the Consistent Implementation of the Act on the Use of the Languages and Scripts of National Minorities (OG 33/12). (5) Croatia has continuously upgraded the system of national minority rights protection in the legislative and legal fields. Thus, in 2012, a new Local Elections Act was passed (OG 144/12 and 121/16), which came into force on 29 December 2012 and has been fully applied as of 18 April 2013. It regulates local elections,