1. STATISTICAL DATA
In the 1991 census, 2,959 persons declared themselves as members of the Italian National Community and 3,882 persons stated the Italian language as their mother tongue. In the 2002 census, 2,258 persons (701 persons less or 23.7 per cent less) declared themselves as being Italians and 3,762 persons (120 persons less or 3.1 per cent less) declared Italian language as their mother tongue. The Italian National Community living in the Republic of Slovenia represent 0.11 per cent of the total population in the Republic of Slovenia. Among 2,258 persons declaring themselves as Italians 1,840 members of the Italian National Community live in the ethnically mixed area in three coastal municipalities (Koper, Izola, Piran), which represents 81.5 per cent of all Italians in the Republic of Slovenia. 418 members of this community live outside the ethnically mixed area, which represents 18.5 per cent of all persons who declared themselves as members of the Italian National Community.
Totally different state of the number of members of the Italian National Community in the Republic of Slovenia is established in the Analysis on the Situation and Implementation of Special Rights of the Italian and Hungarian National Communities in the Republic of Slovenia in the scope of the implementation of legal and other regulations and definition of possible measures for its preservation, adopted by the Government of the Republic of Slovenia on 29 July 2004. According to this Analysis the actual number of members of the Italian National Community is considerably larger. There are 3,388 members of the Italian National Community living in the territory of the Republic of Slovenia, which is 12.66 per cent more than in 1991 (2,959 persons). This data was established on the basis of electoral register compiled by the Italian National Community itself in the ethnically mixed area for the local election in November 2002, the same year as the census was held (April 2002).
Ethnically mixed areas in the Republic of Slovenia, where the members of the Italian National Community autochthonously reside and where Italian language is official language beside Slovenian, are as follows:
- Koper/Capodistria Municipality with the settlements Ankaran/Ancarano, Barizoni/Barisoni, Bertoki/Bertocchi, Bošamarin/Bossamarino, Cerej/Cerei, Hrvatini/Crevatini, Kampel/Campel, Kolomban/Colombano, Koper/Capodistria, Prade/Prade, Premančan, a part of the settlement Spodnje Škofije/Val-marin, Šalara/Salara and Škocjan/San Canziano,
- Izola/Isola Municipality with settlements Izola/Isola, Dobrava pri Izoli, Jagodje, Livada and Polje pri Izoli,
- Piran/Pirano Municipality with settlements Piran/Pirano, Portorož/Portorose, Lucija/Lucia, Strunjan/Strugnano, Seča/Sezza, Sečovlje/Sicciole, Parecag/Parezzago and Dragonja.
2. CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL POSITION OF THE ITALIAN NATIONAL COMMUNITY
- The Basic Constitutional Charter on the Independence and Sovereignty of the Republic of Slovenia (Official Gazette RS, No. 1-4/91I) stipulates that “Italian and Hungarian National Communities and persons thereof living in the Republic of Slovenia are guaranteed all rights recognized by the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia and international agreements.”
- Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia:
Article 64 (Special Rights of the Autochthonous Italian and Hungarian National Communities in Slovenia): - the right to use national symbols freely;
- in order to preserve its national identity, the right to establish organisations and develop economic, cultural, scientific and research activities, as well as activities in the field of public media and publishing;
- the right to education and schooling in its own language and the right to establish and develop such education and schooling (the geographic areas in which bilingual schools are compulsory is established by law);
- the right to foster relations with its nation of origin and its respective country;
- in order to exercise its rights, the right to establish its own self-governing communities;
- the right to be directly represented in representative bodies of local self-government and in the National Assembly;
- these rights are guaranteed irrespective of the number of members of this community;
- Constitution in Article 64, Paragraph 5, stipulates that “Laws, regulations and other general acts that concern the exercise of the constitutionally provided rights and the position of the National Communities exclusively, may not be adopted without the consent of representatives of these National Communities.” Self-Governing Ethnic Communities Act (Official Gazette RS, No. 65/94) in Article 15, Paragraph 2, further stipulates that “as to matters related to status of the members of National Communities, state bodies are obliged to acquire prior opinion of the self-governing national communities.”
Article 11 - “The official language in Slovenia is Slovene. In those municipalities where Italian or Hungarian National Communities reside, Italian or Hungarian shall also be official languages.”;
Article 61 - the right to freely express affiliation with his nation or national community;
Article 62 - the right to use his language and script;
- Self-Governing National Communities Act
(Official Gazette RS, No. 65/94)
Article 1 stipulates:
“For the implementation of special rights, guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia, for the promotion of their needs and interests, and for organised participation in public matters, members of the Italian and Hungarian National Communities establish, in regions of their autochthonous settlement, self-governing national communities.” This gives further operational basis for implementing the constitutional rights of the Italian and Hungarian National Communities.
- Members of the Italian National Community are also guaranteed certain rights that apply outside the ethnically mixed areas (e.g. entry into a special electoral register for the election of a deputy to the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia, the right to learn one's native language outside the ethnically mixed area under certain conditions).
- Members of the Italian National Community are also represented with one representative in the Council of Radiotelevizija Slovenija. In addition, the Council of Radiotelevizija Slovenija also appoints program councils for minority programs in which two thirds of the members belong to the two National Communities.
- More than 60 sector-specific laws, other legal acts, ordinances and statutes of the municipalities in the ethnically mixed areas, treaties or interstate agreements, as well as international conventions that have been ratified by the Republic of Slovenia further regulate the status of the Italian National Community.
3. ORGANISATION OF THE ITALIAN NATIONAL COMMUNITY
In accordance with the legal order of the Republic of Slovenia, the Italian National Community in Slovenia is organised within the Coastal Italian Self-governing Community. This is the umbrella organisation, which has the status of an entity of public law, and communicates with state authorities in the municipalities of Koper, Izola, and Piran – municipalities in which Italians live autochthonously.
In the above mentioned three municipalities, the Italian National Community is organised in municipal Italian self-governing communities, which are linked with the umbrella organisation through their delegates, i.e. elected members, and represent a form of political representation at the local level (i.e. the municipal level).
The council of the Coastal Italian Self-Governing Community has nine members; each of the three municipal self-governing communities has three members in the council.
In each of three coastal municipalities where Italians authochthonously live, the applicable statutes stipulate that one of the deputy mayors has to be a member of the Italian National Community. Members of the Italian National Community also have councillors in municipal councils, which are elected by members of the Italian Community themselves. In addition to universal voting right, members of this National Community also have a special voting right – on local and national level. They elect their own representative - deputy to the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia (Article 80, Paragraph 3, of the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia).
In addition, the Italian National Community in Slovenia established the Italian Union – the Community of Italians, which has the status of an association. This Union has established links with the Italian Union in Croatia, and serves as a (material and cultural) bridge to link with the parent nation and state.
In accordance with the legal order of the Republic of Slovenia, the Italian National Community is organised within:
OBALNA SAMOUPRAVNA SKUPNOST ITALIJANSKE NARODNOSTI -
COMUNITA' AUTOGESTITA COSTIERA DELLA NAZIONALITA' ITALIANA
(COASTAL ITALIAN SELF-GOVERNING COMMUNITY)
Župančičeva ulica - Via Župančič 39
SI-6000 KOPER - CAPODISTRIA
Tel. No.: +386 (05) 627 91 50
Fax No.: +386 (05) 627 40 91
E-mail: cna_costiera(at)siol.net
President: Silvano Sau
4. ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF EDUCATION, CULTURE AND INFORMATION SERVICES
The Italian National Community has numerous societies and other cultural and educational institutions using the Italian language.
a) ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF EDUCATION:
In the 2003/2004 school years, a total of 264 children attended three pre-school institutions using Italian as the language of instruction (Delfino Blu in Koper, Dante Alighieri in Izola, and La Coccinella in Portorož) in the ethnically mixed areas of the coastal municipalities.
A total of 385 pupils attended three elementary schools and affiliated schools with Italian as the language of instruction in the 2004/2005 school years (elementary schools Dante Alighieri, Izola; Pier Paolo Vergerio il Vecchio, Koper with affiliated schools in Semedela, Bertoki and Hrvatini; and Vincenzo de Castro, Piran with affiliated schools in Lucija, Sečovlje and Strunjan).
A total of 291 students attended three secondary schools with Italian as the language of instruction in the 2004/2005 school years (Antonio Sema High School, Piran; Gian Rinaldo Carli Secondary School, Koper; Pietro Coppo Secondary Vocational School – Economics, Izola).
The Italian language and literature can be studied at the University of Ljubljana (Faculty of Arts) and at the recently established University of Primorska with its headquarters in Koper. Members of the Italian National Community can also study at the universities in Italy (particularly when they want to study other, non-linguistic subjects in the Italian language) and in Croatia (Rijeka, Pula).
b) ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF CULTURE:
Members of the Italian National Community in the Republic of Slovenia have set up numerous societies (political, general, cultural, sports, research, etc), they have three libraries and there are also special departments devoted to the Italian culture, publications and magazines within the network of public libraries.
In October 2005 the Coastal Italian Self-Governing Community founded the so-called Italian Promotional, Cultural, Educational and Developmental Centre (ECIT), a public institution. This public institution will inter alia stimulate and develop interethnic coexistence, multiculturalism and multilingualism; it will stimulate and develop the integration of the Italian National Community into international, crossborder and interregional processes of cooperation.
c) ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF INFORMATION SERVICES:
The EDIT publishing house in Rijeka with the A.I.A. agency in Koper (the former is co-financed and the latter fully financed by Slovenia) is engaged in newspaper publishing and publishes the daily newspaper La Voce del Popolo. Cultural and information publications are also published in the ethnically mixed area: La Cittá, Il Mandracchio, Lasa pur dir, Il Trillo and other occasional editions.
Regular daily radio and television programs are produced within the public Radiotelevizija Slovenia, at the Regional Radio and Television Centre Koper-Capodistria (national RTV Slovenia). There is 18 hours of radio program daily which amounts to 126 hours weekly, while television programs are broadcast for 9 hours on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and for 7.5 hours on Mondays and Thursdays. To ensure the operation of this institution falling within the system of RTV Slovenia, a certain number of the employed are working full time and a certain number part time, both on a permanent basis (a special fee is collected by the national TV for this purpose). 86 employed in the radio and television programs of the Regional Radio and Television Centre Koper-Capodistria are working on a full time basis, and indirectly working in other services there are additional 69 workers. In addition to those employed full time there are 31 people employed working on a permanent part time basis in the radio and television programs, and 7 more workers - students. Therefore, there are all together 193 people employed for the preparation of radio and television programs for the Italian National Community. The programs of national communities have been additionally co-financed by the state (Office for Nationalities) in view of the provision of Article 30 of the Radiotelevizija Slovenija Act (Official Gazette, No. 96/05).
Three common institutions, which are very important for the Italian Community in Slovenia, are active in the territory of the Republic of Croatia:
- EDIT publishing house in Rijeka
- Italian Theatre, Rijeka
- Historic Research Centre in Rovinj.
These institutions are co-financed by the Republic of Slovenia, even though there is no interstate legal instrument to this end. The present financing is based on the decision of 1993 of the Government Committee for State Regulation and Public Administration.
The Italian Union from Rijeka (society) is also partly financed by the Republic of Slovenia.
In addition to the Italian Union from Rijeka, there is also a society with the same name that exists in Slovenia and has its headquarters in Koper.
5. IMPLEMENTATION OF INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTS
The Republic of Slovenia strives to fulfil obligations arising from international documents and other documents, related to the Italian National Community in the Republic of Slovenia.
To the Italian National Community the 1977 Osimo Agreements are relevant. It is a bilateral agreement between the former SFRY and the Italian Republic. Upon proclaiming independence in 1991, the Republic of Slovenia made a commitment to further respect these agreements. The Osimo Agreements also include the essential provisions of the Special Statute annexed to the London Memorandum of 1954.
The Republic of Slovenia ratified the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities in 1998. As the Framework Convention does not contain definition of national minority and it is up to the Parties to define which ethnic groups are treated as national minorities, at the time of deposit of the instrument of ratification the Republic of Slovenia stated that, in accordance with the Constitution and internal legislation of the Republic of Slovenia, national minorities in the Republic of Slovenia are the autochthonous Italian and Hungarian National Minorities.
The Republic of Slovenia ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages on 19 July 2000. At the time of deposit of the instrument of ratification on 4 October 2000 the Republic of Slovenia stated that the provisions of the Charter would apply from 1 January 2001. At the time of deposit of the instrument of ratification the Republic of Slovenia stated that the Italian and Hungarian languages are considered as regional or minority languages in the territory of the Republic of Slovenia, within the meaning of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
6. CONCLUSION
The members of the Italian National Community in Slovenia enjoy the same rights as all other citizens of the Republic of Slovenia. Special rights that are bestowed to its members originate from the constitutional protection, from interstate agreements and international documents.
The Council of Europe has established that the protection of this minority in Slovenia is quite exemplary, and that in comparison to the European Union it offers an even higher level of standard in the field of minority rights as one of the most important human rights segments.
Even though there are still some issues that remain unsettled, for instance the co-financing by the Republic of Slovenia of the Italian institutions in Croatia, which does not base on any legal foundation and still remains to be solved (the need to study the possibilities of a special interstate agreement).
OFFICE FOR NATIONALITIES
Director
STANKO BALUH, M.A.
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