According to a report on the BBC News website, under a new law which will apply from 1st September this year people who use minority languages in public services could be fined up to €5,000. That is, if the minority constitutes less than 20% of the Slovak population. Understandably this has not been well received by speakers of minority languages in Slovakia, especially among Hungarian speakers, who make up about 10% of the population.
Details of the new law are available here. These state that minorities have the right to use Slovak and their native languages, however only minorities that make up 20% or more of the population in a particular area can use their native languages when dealing with local government organisations. They also say that “Local administration bodies and their employees are not employed to speak a minority language.”
