The people will be allowed to state their second ethnicity in the upcoming census, the Statistics Office announced on Monday. This is a reversal of its previous stance, when the Statistics Office was advocating to withdraw the question about second ethnicity from the questionnaire. The 2021 population census will take place online between February 15th and March 31st, and foreigners with temporary or permanent residence in Slovakia are invited to take part too. More information in English about the census can be found here.
OLaNO MP Juraj Gyimesi called on the Statistics Office to withdraw the initial proposal, as he found it tended towards the assimilation of ethnic minority communities. Gyimesi's call was subsequently joined also by President Zuzana Čaputová, Gov't proxies, the House Committee for National and Ethnic Minorities as well as Public Ombudswoman Maria Patakyová, with the latter voicing concern that the proposal might also be unconstitutional.
