The European Council advisory body for the Framework convention for the protection of national minorities released a written statement regarding information provided by Slovakia in 2014. The document reads that the Slovak government's ability to co-ordinate the protection of national minorities effectively has recently been weakened. According to the European Council, the Slovak Government has to secure the protection of national minorities' rights to be a part of its agenda. The European Council also reminded the Slovak government to intensify its efforts in protecting Roma people against discrimination and, above all, to solve intolerance towards Roma in education. In its call, the European council paid special attention to moving the plenipotentiary for the Roma community under the agenda of Interior Ministry. That might be a signal of interpreting Roma community rights as security challenges. The documents also point out the steps taken to secure the balance in the use of the state language and the right to use minorities' languages. However, their implementation should have been more flexible. There are 13 recognised minorities living in Slovakia: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, German, Hungarian, Jewish, Moravian, Polish, Rusyn, Russian, Serbian and Ukrainian.
Zvuk: TASR
