Mr Eduard KUKAN

Minister for Foreign Affairs

of the Slovak Republic

BRATISLAVA

The Hague

20 June 1994

Reference :

No 2556/94/L

OSCE Ref. Com no.36

Dear Mr Minister,

Please allow me to address you on some issues which I have had the privilege of discussing with the Slovak Government before. In writing the present letter, I have made use of the report submitted to me by a Team of experts after it had visited Slovakia in February of this year. The Team was established in 1993 upon the agreement of both the Hungarian and the Slovak Governments. Its task is to study, based on CSCE principles and commitments, both the situation of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia and the situation of the Slovak minority in Hungary in the light of the general policies towards minorities of each of the Governments concerned. The Team paid a first visit to Slovakia and Hungary in September 1993 and a second one in February of the present year. Two more visits are due to take place before the Summer of 1995.

Mr Minister, the Slovak Government's Policy Statement makes it clear that the Government sees it as one of its main tasks to ensure the rights of persons belonging to national minorities and that in this context it will strive for a social consensus. A crucial sentence reflects what I feel is essential to a constructive and fruitful approach of the minority issue, the Slovak Government declaring that it will implement "a mechanism of ongoing dialogue as a method promoting co-operation, seeking consensus in formulating and exercising the right of citizens constituting national minorities."

The creation and development of instruments of dialogue and the promotion of public discussion as part of the evolving structure of democratic institutions are an essential factor in a living democracy. As I have indicated in my previous recommendations, rumours and speculations can be prevented from causing frictions and disputes if there is sufficient openness in the procedures followed, if information about important plans and developments is made available to those affected and if their effective participation in discussions and decision-making is provided for.

I would therefore recommend that issues touching upon national minorities be openly discussed in a specialised organ with adequate minority representation and participation. The establishment and development of such a body should be discussed with members of all minorities. Perhaps the present Governmental Council on Minorities and the Presidential Roundtable, which your predecessor and I already discussed in the exchange of letters mentioned above, could be transformed into such an organ. This organ should have real competencies with regard to legislation touching upon minority issues. I am thinking specifically of the competence to discuss legislative concepts before they are submitted to parliament, to suggest amendments to existing legislation, and also to advise on or even propose themes and concepts for new legislation. Such proposals would have to be taken into account by the Government and, as appropriate, be submitted to parliament for its consideration.

Mr Minister, the administrative reform of Slovakia is obviously of major importance to your country and will have a fundamental impact on its development in the coming years, affecting all Slovak citizens including those belonging to the Hungarian minority. In this context, it is important that the Government has undertaken to study the preconditions for Slovakia's accession to the European Charter of Local Self-Government.

In January of this year, the experts of the Council of Europe which the Slovak Government invited to provide it with expert advice on the administrative reform submitted a second series of recommendations. Among others, they have quite rightly pointed out that the ethnic aspect should also be taken into account as a major factor for the creation of regions in those parts of the country where the Hungarians constitute a majority of the population. In earlier conversations with the Slovak Government I was assured that, whatever option would be chosen, the rights of persons belonging to the Hungarian minority would not be curtailed. This assurance was a reflection of the undertaking entered into by the Slovak authorities on the accession of Slovakia to the Council of Europe that, whatever administrative divisions would be introduced in the Slovak Republic, they would respect the rights of national minorities.

Still, it remains a highly sensitive issue for those persons belonging to the Hungarian minority. Before a final decision is taken, it would in my view be desirable that this issue were to be made one of the subjects on which discussions and consultations should take place in the framework of the organ I discussed with you above. It is my feeling that many concerns could be removed if local self-governing authorities throughout Slovakia were given the right and the ability, within the limits of the law, to regulate and manage a substantial share of public affairs under their own responsibility and in the interests of the local population. I would therefore hope that the rpoecss of devolution of powers will be implemented in the near future. Of course in order to be able to fulfil certain functions effectively a certain minimum size is sometimes required. I understand that there are plans to form joint administrative units in which municipalities would work together in the exercise of certain tasks such as in the field of education.

With regard to persons belonging to national minorities, their interests would in the first place seem best served by effective competencies for local authorities in the fields of education and culture. I note that the Government in its Policy Statement stated that particular attention will be paid to, inter alia, devolving authority from state administration to local government bodies and related financial flows (chapter on 'The State, Democracy, Law and Public Order'). Therefore, I think that the local self-government could be made responsible for running the primary and secondary schools, the state retaining the overall responsibility for the basic elements of the curriculum. In order to be able to pay the accompanying expenses, these local self-governments should be provided, through appropriate state, local and regional finance legislation, with grants and/or adequate financial resources. The chapter on 'Education, Training and Science' in the Policy Statement would seem to open the door for such decisions.

As regards the regional self-governing authorities to be created, it is important that the electoral system should guarantee adequate representation of minorities on deliberative and executive bodies. This is a point which has also repeatedly been stressed by the experts of the Council of Europe.

In the education chapter of its policy statement the Government has declared that the right to choose the language of teaching will be ensured. I understand this clearly to mean that all those who are a minority, either in Slovakia as a whole or locally, should be able to receive education in their own language. The Government's statement that it would study the preconditions for Slovakia's accession to the European Charter of Regional or Minority Languages gains importance in this perspective. Obviously, the availability of sufficient teachers is a prerequisite for the exercise of the right to be taught in one's own language. A major concern was voiced by the representatives of the Hungarian minority with regard to the availability of Hungarian language teachers. In light of this, the organisation of the training of these teachers at the pedagogical institute at Nitra would seem to deserve special attention.

The Slovak Government has declared that conditions will be established to enable pupils of all nationalities to master the standard Slovak language. An important educational aim seems to be an overall improvement of the teaching of the Slovak language in the school system for the benefit of all pupils in Slovakia, part of which is the improvement of the command of the Slovak language by pupils belonging to national minorities including Hungarian pupils. In my view, there can be no doubt that command of the main language in a state is essential to all citizens of that state, and indeed I have heard no dissident voices in this respect. The best way forward seems to me the full development of the track of a general improvement of Slovak-language education from which the Hungarian pupils would also profit. Within that overall strategy, other possibilities could be explored, such as an increase in the amount of teaching in the Slovak language in Hungarian schools, without this resulting in a decrease in the teaching in or of the Hungarian mother tongue.

If such a policy would be systematically pursued, there would in my view be no need to proceed with the experiment of alternative schools. A central aim of the alternative schools would have been the improvement of the command of the Slovak language by pupils belonging to national minorities. But that objective can be achieved in the way described above.

Lastly, Mr Minister, the questions of bilingual roadsigns of towns and villages in Slovakia and that of Christian and family names were subjects of some of the recommendations by the Council of Europe which the Slovak Republic accepted as conditions for joining that organisation of democratic European states. These issues have been addressed by the new Government in a determined way. Nevertheless, so far there has been significant progress only with the latter, the Government draft law on bilingual road signs having been narrowly defeated in parliament. I would hope that an acceptable solution to this problem, in conformity with the recommendations of the Council of Europe, will be found in the near future.

Mr Minister, I would be most grateful if you would let me know the views of your Government on the foregoing.

Yours sincerely,

Max van der Stoel

CSCE High Commissioner

on National Minorities