Information on the Austrian State Treaty and bilingual signposts

Ljubljana, 21 February 2006

- Article 7, Paragraph 3 of the Austrian State Treaty concerning the rights of the Slovenian and Croatian minorities stipulates:

"In administrative and judicial areas of Carinthia, Burgenland, and Styria with Slovenian, Croatian and mixed populations, the Slovenian and Croatian languages, besides German, shall be permitted as official languages. Signposts and signs in these areas shall be in the Slovenian and Croatian as well as German languages."

- Article 7, Paragraph 3 of the Austrian State Treaty thus unambiguously defines the setting-up of bilingual signs. A problem arises because the Article does not define the area or criteria for the setting-up of signposts, which allows different interpretations (from 92 to 394 signposts).

- In July 1972, Austria adopted the Bilingual Signposts Act. The Act, adopted only with the votes of socialist members of Parliament, defined 205 localities in South Carinthia where bilingual signposts should be set up. Although the Act governs the entire territory, it did not convince the Slovenian minority, since it included only slightly more than a quarter of the localities in the bilingual area, and it caused strong reactions among the German nationalist forces. All the bilingual signs were violently taken down in only a few nights.

- A trilateral agreement was signed in Austria in 1976 that provided for the adoption of minority legislation on the basis of consensus among the three parties represented in Parliament and the Carinthian regional government. In 1976, a special census was carried out on the basis of the agreement, and later in the same year the so-called restrictive legislation of 7 July containing executive regulations was also adopted. This is the National Communities Act, on the basis of which four additional decrees were adopted in 1977; one of them was the Decree defining areas where German and Slovenian signposts should be set up. The Act stipulates a 25-percent share of the Slovenian population. In accordance with the Decree, there should be 92 bilingual signposts in Carinthia.

In the last 15 years, the Austrian Constitutional Court played an important part with regard to minority rights. On the basis of Constitutional Court decisions (of 13 December 2001 and 28 December 2005), the 25-percent share of Slovenians (defined by the National Communities Act) was reduced to a minimum of a 10-percent threshold of inhabitants for setting up bilingual signposts. The Court referred to the "aim" and "purpose" of Article 7, Paragraph 3 of the Austrian State Treaty (the question of the applicability of Article 7 of the Treaty and implementation of obligations under this Article). President of the Constitutional Court Korinek criticises the federal government for the delay in setting up bilingual signs, since the government was obliged to issue an updated list of all localities where bilingual signs should be set up. The federal government must also indicate the names of those localities whose Slovenian designations are not clear. The fact that the Decree on signposts has not been amended yet does not influence the region’s responsibility to set up bilingual signs.

- The Federal Chancellor convened a consensus conference (2002) that was not successful. A preliminary agreement on the setting-up of 148 signposts was reached, but later the agreement failed due to the demand for a statement that this would constitute the fulfilment of the obligation. At the 2005 continuation of the consensus conference, so far only a consensus on the setting-up of the 21 missing bilingual signposts stipulated by the 1977 Decree was reached. Professor Karner presented a proposal for a staged resolution of the setting-up of signposts in 2005, 2008 and 2010. According to his proposal, there would be 158 signs in Carinthia. Austria should also undertake to finance the Slovenian minority media and cultural institutions systemically. The Association requests the setting-up of a total of 394 bilingual signs, i.e. in all localities with more than 10 percent of Slovenian-speaking inhabitants.

- Austria has not entirely adopted the appropriate implementing legislation in the fields that are the subject of protection under Article 7 of the Austrian State Treaty. The adopted legislation is inadequate in many fields and is not being implemented.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has followed the delays in implementing Article 7 with concern. Minister Rupel has discussed this issue with and written to the Austrian Foreign Minister on several occasions. The end of the Austrian presidency will be an appropriate time to review achievements in this field and, based on experience, for a broader discussion in the multilateral sphere.

- Today, the Ministry is opening its web pages to initiate such discussion; everyone interested is welcome to join. The Slovenian Minority Coordination and people in countries with Slovenian inhabitants are invited to cooperate.