Strasbourg, 10 March 2015 MIN-LANG (2015) PR 4 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 HUNGARY 1 SIXTH PERIODICAL REPORT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF HUNGARY ON THE implementation of the obligations undertaken with the support of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of the Council of Europe September 2014 2 Table of contents INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 5 Nationalities in Hungary ........................................................................................................ 6 Information on Hungary ......................................................................................................... 7 Person speaking a regional or minority language .................................................................. 9 Statistical data of nationalities .............................................................................................. 10 Regional distribution of the speakers of the languages subject to the commitments of Part III .......................................................................................................................................... 13 Languages not subject to the commitments of Part III ......................................................... 16 Subsidies for nationalities between 2012-2014 .................................................................... 17 CHAPTER I ............................................................................................................................. 23 The most important laws and legal regulations serving to protect nationality languages .... 23 International outlook ............................................................................................................ 35 Responses to the recommendations of the Committee of Ministers .................................... 36 CHAPTER II ............................................................................................................................ 38 Hungary’s general nationality policy ................................................................................... 38 Article 7 – Objectives and principles ................................................................................... 38 CHAPTER III ........................................................................................................................... 49 Hungary's commitments realised over the past three years .................................................. 49 Article 8 – Education ............................................................................................................ 49 General questions ...................................................................................................... 49 Minority kindergartens .............................................................................................. 54 Minority Primary Schools ......................................................................................... 56 Minority Secondary Schools ..................................................................................... 58 Minority Vocational Schools ..................................................................................... 61 Minority Higher Education ........................................................................................ 63 Minority adult education ........................................................................................... 64 Minority History and Culture .................................................................................... 66 Article 9 – Justice ................................................................................................................. 72 Article 10 – Administrative Authorities and Civil Service Bodies ...................................... 75 3 Article 11 – Mass Media ...................................................................................................... 79 Programmes of the Hungarian Radio for national minorities .................................... 81 Programmes of the Hungarian Television for national minorities ............................ 84 Nationality newspapers and other media ................................................................... 88 Article 12 – Cultural activities and cultural facilities .......................................................... 90 Supply of libraries, publishing ................................................................................... 90 Museums, collections, archives ................................................................................. 93 Theatres of national minorities .................................................................................. 94 Other areas of national minority culture .................................................................... 95 Article 13 – Economic and social life ................................................................................ 100 Article 14 – Cross-border exchange programmes .............................................................. 102 APPENDIX ............................................................................................................................ 104 1. Annex: Good practices and relevant initiatives ........................................................... 104 2. Annex: Details on higher education ............................................................................ 112 4 INTRODUCTION The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (hereinafter: Language Charter) was approved by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 25 June 1992. Hungary signed the document on the day before its opening date for signature, on 5 November 1992. Pursuant to Decree 35/1995 (IV 7) of the National Assembly, the Charter was ratified and became effective after the required number (five) of ratifications on 1 March 1998. The document was promulgated in Strasbourg by Act XL of 1999 on the announcement of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages on 5 November 1992. The acceding parties have committed to prepare their reports within one year from the effective date. Following this, the report needs to be updated every three years. Hungary submitted its first report in September 1999, which was followed by the second periodical report in 2002, the third in November 2005, the fourth in January 2009 and the fifth in March 2012, submitted to the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe. After submission of the reports, the Panel of Experts of the Language Charter sought information regarding the contents of the report in Hungary and prepared a report for the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (hereinafter: Committee of Ministers). Following this, the Committee of Ministers discussed the documents and accepted recommendations for Hungary, in which it formulated its expectations in order to strengthen the implementation of the Language Charter in Hungary. For the preparation of the sixth round report, we followed the draft of the 3 year periodical report approved by the Council of Ministers of the Council of Europe at its 1056th session (26 May 2009) and took into consideration the recommendations CM/RecChL (2013) issue 5 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe approved on 10 July 2013 and the recommendations and questions formulated by the Panel of Experts of the Language Charter in the document in MINLANG (2014) issue 6 (17 March 2014) entitled “Questions to present by the Hungarian Government upon preparation of the 6th periodical report” which we now answer within the present country report. In the sixth periodical report on the implementation of its commitments regarding the strengthening of the Language Charter of the Hungarian Government (hereinafter: Report), information is given on the questions concerning the period between January 2012 and January 2014. Hungary’s policy regarding regional or minority languages and the fundamental legal regulations guaranteeing protection for minority languages has changed, which primarily concerns the new Fundamental Law and Act CLXXIX of 2011 on the Rights of Nationalities (hereinafter: Nationality Act), and the legal regulations of education and elections, the latter having become effective at the start of the reporting period corresponding to the present country report. In addition to this, as a consequence of the implementation of the recommendations formulated by the Committee of Ministers and the obligations undertaken to strengthen the Language Charter, a number of legislative amendments have been drawn up, extending the possibilities of language usage and a number of provisions have been passed that clarify the right of usage of minority languages in certain areas of daily life. 5 The structure of the report corresponds to the guidelines approved by the Committee of Ministers and issued to the member states involved. Our introduction mainly contains general information regarding Hungary and the nationalities living here. In Chapter I of the report the legal regulations serving to protect minority languages are shown. Chapter II of our report essentially summarises Part II of the Language Charter through the introduction of Hungary’s nationality policies. Chapter III describes the implementation of the obligations undertaken in Part